'I 


/^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


The  Dark  Wind 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/darkwindOOturn 


The  Dark  Wind 


BY 

W.  J.  TURNER 


'The  mind  of  the  people  is  like  mud. 
From  which  arise  strange  and  beautiful  things" 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

68 1  FIFTH  AVENUE 


Copyright,  1920 
By  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Printed  tn  the  United  States  of  America 


-.-   ^; 


TO 

SIEGFRIED  SASSOON 


LIBRARY' 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The  Dark  Wind  I 

Romance  2 

Spain  4 

Ecstasy  ii 

In  the  Caves  of  Auvergne  13 

Shipwreck  16 

The  Ape  18 

The  Search  of  the  Nightingale  20 

India  26 

The  Hunter  27 

Talking  with  Soldiers  29 

Marah  31 

The  Sky-Sent  Death  33 

Aeroplanes  37 

Song:   The  Far-ofF  Princess  40 

Magic  41 

Hollyhocks  44 

Uber  Allen  Gipfein  47 

Clapham  Common  49 


vu 


Sea-Madness 

S6 

I  am  a  Hunter 

58 

The  Music  of  a  Tree 

59 

Haystacks 

60 

The  Shepherd  Goes  to  War 

62 

A  Ritual  Dance 

69 

Song 

75 

The  Robber 

76 

Kent  in  War 

78 

Death's  Men 

81 

Sunflowers 

83 

Recollecting  a  Visit 

85 

Music 

86 

Epithalamium  for  a  Modern  Wedding 

87 

Soldiers  in  a  Small  Camp 

90 

Song 

92 

Silence 

93 

Soldiers 

95 

Illusion 

98 

Peace 

99 

Harp,  Flute  and  Viol 

lOI 

Solitude 

104 

Mirage 

106 

On  the  Roof  of  the  World 

107 

On  Persian  Hills 

108 

via 


PACB 

Petunia  109 

The  Forest  Bird  113 

Maidens  I15 

Clerks  on  Holiday  Il8 

The  Princess  124 

Death  126 

Love — A  Dream  133 

The  Pompadour  in  Art  136 

A  Madonna  in  Westminster  140 

A  Last  Love  Poem  146 

Le  Sacre  du  Printemps  150 

Fantasy  IS3 


The  Dark  Wind 


The  Dark  Wind 

A  DARK  Wind  drifts  about  the  world, 
The  sea  flower-patterned  flows ; 

Blows  earth's  green  blaze,  footprintless  there 
The  Wind  transparent  goes. 

Yet  dark  is  that  Wind,  dark  as  the  sky 

Arched  over  fields  of  snow; 
Dark  the  Feet  that  fret  the  blue  wave 

Where  white  magnolias  blow. 


Romance 


When  I  was  but  thirteen  or  so 
I  went  into  a  golden  land, 

Chimborazo,  Cotopaxi 
Took  me  by  the  hand. 

My  father  died,  my  brother  too, 
They  passed  like  fleeting  dreams, 

I  stood  where  Popocatapetl 
In  the  sunlight  gleams. 

I  dimly  heard  the  master's  voice 
And  boys  far-off  at  play, 

Chimborazo,  Cotopaxi 
Had  stolen  me  away. 

I  walked  in  a  great  golden  dream 
The  town  streets,  to  and  fro — 

Shining  Popocatapetl 
Gleamed  with  his  cap  of  snow. 


I  walked  home  with  a  gold  dark  boy 
And  never  a  word  I'd  say, 

Chimborazo,  Cotopaxi 

Had  taken  my  speech  away: 

I  gazed  entranced  upon  his  face 

Fairer  than  any  flower — 
O  shining  Popocatapetl, 

It  was  thy  magic  hour: 

The  houses,  people,  traffic  seemed 
Thin  fading  dreams  by  day, 

Chimborazo,  Cotopaxi, 
They  had  stolen  my  soul  away! 


Spain 

Morning 

The  orange  glooms  in  the  half-dawn, 

The  white  walls  are  pale  glimmering  dreams, 

Trees  haunt  them,  stream-still,  dim-illumed 

With  round  gold  fruit  on  green  boughs  borne. 

Mist-pearl  the  Guadalquivir  lies 
Shimmering,  dropt  from  the  pale  heaven; 
Star-drunken,  a  god-ecstatic  fool 
Mumbling  divine,  night-dwindling  cries. 

Passionately  the  dim  Dawn  fills 
With  purple  heaps  of  shadows :  Trees, 
Their  vapour-sleep  about  their  knees, 
Dream  gem-still  on  the  luminous  hills. 

Green  fires  jewel-blazed  mid  milk-white  walls 

Bloom  from  the  pale  transparent  air; 

The  sunlight  flickers  on  their  spires, 

The  night's  dark  mirage-tower  falls. 

4 


On  a  glittering  plain 

Far  away, 

A  bony  horse  with  an  armoured  knight 

Labours;  his  squire  behind 

Toils  and  sweats  with  his  ass. 

A  solitary  Tree, 

A  gesture  in  the  sunlight 

Mournful  but  determined, 

A  song  in  the  dark 

Without  gaiety, 

A  shadow  in  the  white  dust! 

It  is  their  hope. 
It  is  mirrored  in  their  souls. 
In  the  soul  of  the  bony  horse, 
In  the  soul  of  the  ass. 

Under  the  Tree  lies  the  squire. 
His  mouth  is  open,  and  his  soul 
Flutters  over  empty  wineskins: 


The  knight  leans  against  the  trunk, 
The  horse  and  the  ass  are  as  still 
As  fallen  branches. 

Noon-Siesta 

The  lattices  are  shut, 

The  house  is  dark  and  still.  . . . 

The  soul  can  wander  up  and  down 

And  work  its  own  will, 

Phantom  after  phantom  chase. 

Glide  from  dream  to  dream, 

Quiet  as  the  shadow  of  a  hill 

In  a  slow  stream. 

Kings,  Princesses,  Warriors  stark. 

All  in  dream  array. 

Of  glittering  lances,  banners  bright 

On  a  great  highway. 

On  the  highway  lit  by  no 

Sun  or  Stars  or  Moon 

Through  curtained  chambers  wind  their  way 

Like  a  bright  tune — 
6 


Like  a  tune  with  many  places 

Empty,  soundless,  dark; 

There  broods  the  Dove,  moored  in  those  places 

The  Spirit's  ancient  ark 

On  the  waters  faintly  shining 

High  and  mournful  with  black  walls 

Gleams  a  ghost,  a  phantom  vessel 

Ere  the  next  note  falls. 

In  this  stream,  in  this  procession, 
Toledo,  Saragossa,  names 
Of  Castile  and  of  Aragon 
Leap  dream- fitful  flames. 
Arks  of  human  life  their  dark  Towers 
Gloomy  in  the  blazing  sunlight. 
Piercing  with  blood-tortured  thoughts 
A  sky  serene  and  bright. 

Many  centuries  have  passed 

Since  the  Knight  and  the  Squire  lay  dreaming, 

The  one  of  Toledo,  Saragossa,  Princesses  and  Giants, 

7 


The  other  of  wineskins ; 
But  they  are  still  wandering  in  Spain, 
You  may  see  them  any  day 
Under  a  tree. 

Evening 

And  when  night  comes  they  will  sing  serenades 

Under  the  open  windows, 

The  lattices  will  not  be  shut, 

The  Moon  will  wander  through  the  houses: 

Spain  herself  with  the,  voices  of  the  past  in  her  soul 

Will  sit  in  the  shadows. 

And  kiss  the  petals  of  roses, 

And  drop  them  warm  to  her  lovers  below. 

With  the  low  thrumming  of  guitars, 
With  the  gold  throbbing  of  stars, 
With  the  purple  heaving  of  the  seas, 
With  the  glimmer  of  fading  white  walls 
She  drops  her  dusky  hair  over  my  soul; 
O  Spain,  I  am  soul-drunken  with  thee, 
8 


I  am  intoxicated  with  the  scent  of  thy  garments, 
I  am  a  river  delirious  under  the  Moon 
In  whose  bosom  forests  and  stars  and  maidens 
And  innumerable  worlds  are  singing. 

With  the  low  thrumming  of  guitars, 
With  white  arms  hanging  from  the  lattices 
From  clouds  of  dim  hair  indistinguishable  from  the 

night 
The  souls  of  the  serenaders  are  drunken, 
Their  voices  murmur  heavily  like  beetles 
Wandering  in  a  blur  of  flowers: 
Spain  is  glimmering  in  those  white  arms. 
The  flowers  float  up  in  the  dim  darkness, 
The  shadows  fill  with  her  hair; 
She  has  escaped  into  the  palpitating  night 
Leaving  a  heap  of  scented  garments — 
In  her  dark  room  weeps  the  moonlight. 

***** 

The  night  is  empty,  emptier  is  the  day, 
That  secret  loveliness  has  passed  away; 


The  sun  is  burning  and  the  houses  lie 
Bare  and  untidy  to  the  airless  sky, 
The  sea  is  glass,  a  smooth  and  glittering  pane, 
The  flies  sleep  in  the  dust.    This  is  Spain. 


10 


Ecstasy 

I  SAW  a  frieze  on  whitest  marble  drawn 

Of  boys  who  sought  for  shells  along  the  shore, 

Their  white  feet  shedding  pallor  in  the  sea, 

The  shallow  sea,  the  spring-time  sea  of  green 

That  faintly  creamed  against  the  cold,  smooth  pebbles. 

The  air  was  thin,  their  limbs  were  delicate, 
The  wind  had  graven  their  small  eager  hands 
To  feel  the  forests  and  the  dark  nights  of  Asia 
Behind  the  purple  bloom  on  the  horizon, 
Where  sails  would  float  and  slowly  melt  away. 

Their  naked,  pure  and  grave,  unbroken  silence 
Filled  the  soft  air  as  gleaming  limpid  water 
Fills  a  spring  sky  those  days  when  rain  is  lying 
In  shattered  bright  pools  on  the  wind-dried  roads, 
And  their  sweet  bodies  were  wind-purified. 

One  held  a  shell  unto  his  shell-like  ear. 
And  there  was  music  carven  in  his  face, 

II 


His  eyes  half-closed,  his  lips  just  breaking  open 

To  catch  the  lulling,  mazy,  coralline  roar 

Of  numberless  caverns  filled  with  singing  seas. 

And  all  of  them  were  hearkening  as  to  singing 
Of  far-off  voices  thin  and  delicate, 
Voices  too  fine  for  any  mortal  wind 
To  blow  into  the  whorls  of  mortal  ears — 
And  yet  those  sounds  flowed  from  their  grave,  sweet 

faces. 

And  as  I  looked  I  heard  that  delicate  music, 
And  I  became  as  grave,  as  calm,  as  still 
As  those  carved  boys.    I  stood  upon  that  shore, 
I  felt  the  cool  sea  dream  around  my  feet, 
My  eyes  were  staring  at  the  far  horizon: 

And  the  wind  came  and  purified  my  limbs, 
And  the  stars  came  and  set  within  my  eyes. 
And  snowy  clouds  rested  upon  my  shoulders, 
And  the  blue  sky  shimmered  deep  within  me. 
And  I  sang  like  a  carven  pipe  of  music. 

12 


In  the  Caves  of  Auvergne 

He  carved  the  red  deer  and  the  bull 

Upon  the  smooth  cave  rock, 
Returned  from  war,  with  belly  full, 

And  scarred  with  many  a  knock, 
He  carved  the  red  deer  and  the  bull 

Upon  the  smooth  cave  rock. 

The  stars  flew  by  the  cave's  wide  door, 
The  cloud's  wild  trumpets  blew, 

Trees  rose  in  wild  dreams  from  the  floor, 
Flowers  with  dream  faces  grew 

Up  to  the  sky,  and  softly  hung 
Golden  and  white  and  blue. 

The  woman  ground  her  heap  of  corn. 

Her  heart  a  guarded  fire ; 
The  wind  played  in  his  trembling  soul 

Like  a  hand  upon  a  lyre. 
The  wind  drew  faintly  on  the  stone 

Symbols  of  his  desire : 

13 


The  red  deer  of  the  forests  dark, 

Whose  antlers  cut  the  sky, 
That  vanishes  into  the  mirk 

And  like,  a  dream  flits  by. 
And  by  an  arrow  slain  at  last 

Is  but  the  wind's  dark  body. 

The  bull  that  stands  in  marshy  lakes 

As  motionless  and  still 
As  a  dark  rock  jutting  from  a  plain 

Without  a  tree  or  hill. 
The  bull  that  is  the  sign  of  life. 

Its  sombre,  phallic  will. 

And  from  the  dead,  white  eyes  of  them 

The  wind  springs  up  anew. 
It  blows  upon  the  trembling  heart, 

And  bull  and  deer  renew 
Their  flitting  life  in  that  dim  past 

Which  that  dead  Hunter  drew. 


H 


I  sit  beside  him  in  the  night, 

And,  fingering  his  red  stone, 
I  chase  through  endless  forests  dark 

Seeking  that  thing  unknown, 
That  which  is  not  red  deer  or  bull, 

But  which  by  them  was  shown. 

By  those  stiff  shapes  in  which  he  drew 

His  soul's  exalted  cry, 
When  flying  down  the  forest  dark 

He  slew  and  knew  not  why. 
When  he  was  filled  with  song,  and  strength 

Flowed  to  him  from  the  sky. 

The  wind  blows  from  red  deer  and  bull, 
The  clouds  wild  trumpets  blare, 

Trees  rise  in  wild  dreams  from  the  earth, 
Flowers  with  dream-faces  stare — 

O  Hunter^  your  own  shadow  stands 
Within  your  forest  lair. 


15 


Shipwreck 

I  HEARD  a  voice  crying 
In  the  wilderness  of  night; 
I  saw  great  branches  swaying, 
Black  boughs  afloat  on  white 
Intangible,  thin  light. 

The  light  it  never  curdled 
Into  lips  of  foam, 
Shook  no  green,  shivering  tresses 
To  drown  seamen's  caresses — • 
The  dark  Ship  staggering  home. 

There  came  no  rolling  breakers, 
No  tall  waves  roaring  high; 
But  it  was  peaceful,  peaceful, 
And  it  was  empty,  empty; 
An  Albatross  was  I. 

An  Albatross  was  I, 

There  was  no  sea  nor  sky, 
i6 


No  dark  Ship  plunging,  plunging, 
No  dead  men  drifting  by 
Beneath  that  piercing  cry: 

But  all  was  clear  and  silent, 
MooiT-empty  round  that  thing, 
That  grey  wind-glimmering  wing 
Drifting 


17 


The  Ape 

The  trees  dream  all  night  on  the  tops  of  the  hills, 
The  ghostly  water  a  dark  hollow  fills, 
Its  long  white  shadow  falling  through  the  trees 
Where  the  Ape  squats  silent,  his  hands  on  his  knees. 

The  white  shadow  shines  in  that  small  dim  mind ; 
The  Moon  travels  there;  the  star-hordes  wind 
With  pin-head  lamps  through  the  dark,  dark  blue 
Where  faint,  cloud-like  thoughts  collect  and  pursue. 

The  scent  of  the  forest,  the  rippling  streams, 
The  butterflies  flitting  through  the  shaking  tree-dreams; 
The  twittering  of  birds  and  the  dead,  putrefying 
In  the  pale  morning  sky,  a  lion  cub  crying  .  .  .; 

I  see  and  I  hear,  I  awake  in  the  night, 
And  the  Asian  forests  are  dark  in  my  sight, 
With  slow  bright  patches  in  the  drifting  gloom 
Where  Stars,  Sun  and  Moon  soundlessly  bloom. 


The  Sun  hangs  low,  a  great  dim  flower, 

A  bloom  without  stalk,  and  hour  by  hour 

The  sharp  cries  of  birds  and  the  shrieks  of  the  slain 

Are  tearing  the  quiet  with  bright  gashes  of  pain. 

And  that  flower  bleeds  out,  wildly  staining  the  sky; 
And  the  lions  roar  to  see  the  day-flower  die — 
They  roar  together  on  the  tops  of  the  hills 
While  with  little  pale  blossoms  the  dark  sky  fills. 

In  the  gloom  under  heaven,  clasping  my  knees — 
That  long  white  shadow  still  falling  through  the  trees, 
The  lions  roaring  their  music  in  my  brain — 
Alone  on  that  boulder  I  am  sitting  once  again. 


19 


The  Search  for  the  Nightingale 

(To  S.  S.) 

Beside  a  stony,  shallow  stream  I  sat 

In  a  deep  gully  underneath  a  hill. 

I  watched  the  water  trickle  down  dark  moss 

And  shake  the  tiny  boughs  of  maidenhair, 

And  billow  on  the  bodies  of  cold  stone. 

And  sculptured  clear 

Upon  the  shoulder  of  that  aerial  peak 

Stood  trees,  the  fragile  skeletons  of  light, 

High  in  a  bubble  blown 

Of  visionary  stone. 

Under  the  azurine  transparent  arch 

The  hill,  the  rocks,  the  trees 

Were  still  and  dreamless  as  the  printed  wood 

Black  on  the  snowy  page. 

It  was  the  song  of  some  diviner  bird 

Than  this  still  country  knew, 

The  words  were  tvvigs  of  burnt  and  blackened  trees 

20 


From  which  there  trilled  a  voice, 

Shadowy  and  faint,  as  though  it  were  the  song 

The  water  carolled  as  it  flowed  along. 

Lifting  my  head,  I  gazed  upon  the  world, 
Carved  in  the  breathless  heat  as  in  a  gem, 
And  watched  the  parroquets  green-feathered  fly 
Through  crystal  vacancy,  and  perch  in  trees 
That  glittered  in  a  thin,  blue,  haze-like  dream. 
And  the  yoice  faded,  though  the  water  dinned 
Against  the  stones  its  dimming  memory. 
And  I  ached  then 

To  hear  that  song  burst  out  upon  that  scene, 
Startling  an  earth  where  it  had  never  been. 

And  then  I  came  unto  an  older  world. 

The  woods  were  damp,  the  sun 

Shone  in  a  watery  mist,  and  soon  was  gone ; 

The  trees  were  thick  with  leaves,  heavy  and  old. 

The  sky  was  grey,  and  blue,  and  like  the  sea 

Rolling  with  mists  and  shadowy  veils  of  foam. 

21 


I  heard  the  roaring  of  an  ancient  wind 
Among  the  elms  and  in  the  tattered  pines; 
Lighting  pale  hollows  in  the  cloud-dark  sky, 
A  ghostly  ship,  the  Moon,  flew  scudding  by. 

"O  is  it  here,"  I  cried,  ''that  bird  that  sings 
So  that  the  traveller  in  his  frenzy  weeps?" 
It  was  the  autumn  of  the  year,  and  leaves 
Fell  with  a  dizzying  moan,  and  all  the  trees 
Roared  like  the  sea  at  my  small  impotent  voice. 
And  if  that  bird  was  there  it  did  not  sing. 
And  I  knew  not  its  haunts,  or  where  it  w^ent, 
But  carven  stood  and  raved! 
In  that  old  wood  that  dripped  upon  my  face 
Upturned  below,  pale  in  its  passionate  chase. 

And  years  went  by,  and  I  grew  slowly  cold : 
I  had  forgotten  what  I  once  had  sought. 
There  are  no  passions  that  do  not  grow  dim, 
And  like  a  fire  imagination  sinks 
Into  the  ashes  of  the  mind's  cold  grate. 

22 


And  if  I  dreamed,  I  dreamed  of  that  far  land, 
That  coast  of  pearl  upon  a  summer  sea, 
Whose  frail  trees  in  unruffled  amber  sleep, 
Gaudy  with  jewelled  birds,  whose  feathers  spray 
Bright  founts  of  colour  through  the  tranquil  day. 

The  hill,  the  gully,  and  the  stony  stream 
I  had  not  thought  on  when  this  spring  I  sat 
In  a  strange  room  with  candles  guttering  down 
Into  the  flickering  silence.    From  the  Moon 
Among  the  trees  still-wreathed  upon  the  sky 
There  came  the  sudden  twittering  of  a  ghost. 
And  I  stept  out  from  darkness,  and  I  saw 
The  great  pale  sky  immense,  transparent,  filled 
With  boughs  and  mountains  and  wide-shining  lakes 
Where  stillness,  crying  in  a  thin  voice,  breaks. 

It  was  the  voice  of  that  imagined  bird. 
I  saw  the  gully  and  that  ancient  hill, 
The  water  trickling  down  from  Paradise 
Shaking  the  tiny  boughs  of  maidenhair. 


23 


There  sat  the  dreaming  boy. 

And  O !  I  wept  to  see  that  scene  again, 

To  read  the  black  print  on  that  snowy  page, 

I  wept,  and  all  was  still. 

No  shadow  came  into  that  sun-steeped  glen, 

No  sound  of  earth,  no  voice  of  living  men. 

Was  it  a  dream  or  was  it  that  in  me 
A  god  awoke  and  gazing  on  his  dream 
Saw  that  dream  rise  and  gaze  into  its  soul, 
Finding,  Narcissus-like,  its  image  there: 
A  Song,  a  transitory  Shape  on  water  blown, 
Descending  down  the  bright  cascades  of  time, 
The  shadowiest-flowering,  ripple-woven  bloom 
As  ghostly  as  still  waters'  unseen  foam 
That  lies  upon  the  air,  as  that  song  lay 
Within  my  heart  on  one  far  summer  day? 

Carved  in  the  azure  air  white  peacocks  fly, 

Their  fanning  wings  stir  not  the  crystal  trees. 

Bright  parrots  fade  through  dimming  turquoise  days, 

24 


And  music  scrolls  its  lightning  calm  and  bright 
On  the  pale  sky  where  thunder  cannot  come. 
Into  that  world  no  ship  has  ever  sailed, 
No  seaman  gazing  with  hand-shaded  eyes 
Has  ever  seen  its  shore  whiten  the  waves. 
But  to  that  land  the  Nightingale  has  flown, 
Leaving  bright  treasure  on  this  calm  air  blown. 


25 


India 

They  hunt,  the  velvet  tigers  in  the  jungle, 
The  spotted  jungle  full  of  shapeless  patches — 
Sometimes  they're  leaves,  sometimes  they're  hanging 

flowers, 
Sometimes  they're  hot  gold  patches  of  the  sun: 

They  hunt,  the  velvet  tigers  in  the  jungle ! 

What  do  they  hunt  by  glimmering  pools  of  water, 
By  the  round  silver  Moon,  the  Pool  of  Heaven: 
In  the  striped  grass,  amid  the  barkless  trees — 
The  Stars  scattered  like  eyes  of  beasts  above  them  I 

What  do  they  hunt,  their  hot  breath  scorching  insects. 
Insects  that  blunder  blindly  in  the  way. 
Vividly  fluttering — they  also  are  hunting. 
Are  glittering  with  a  tiny  ecstasy! 

The  grass  is  flaming  and  the  trees  are  growing. 

The  very  mud  is  gurgling  in  the  pools, 

Green  toads  are  watching,  crimson  parrots  flying, 

Two  pairs  of  eyes  meet  one  another  glowing — 

They  hunt,  the  velvet  tigers  in  the  jungle. 
26 


The  Hunter 

"5w/  there  was  one  land  he  dared  not  enter" 

Beyond  the  blue,  the  purple  seas, 
Beyond  the  thin  horizon's  line, 
Beyond  Antilla,  Hebrides, 
Jamaica,  Cuba,  Carribbees, 
There  lies  the  land  of  Yucatan. 

The  land,  the  land  of  Yucatan, 

The  low  coast  breaking  into  foam. 

The  dim  hills  where  my  thoughts  shall  roam, 

The  forests  of  my  boyhood's  home, 

The  splendid  dream  of  Yucatan! 

I  met  thee  first  long,  long  ago 
Turning  a  printed  page,  and  I 
Stared  at  a  world  I  did  not  know 
And  felt  my  blood  like  fire  flow 
At  that  strange  name  of  Yucatan. 

27 


0  those  sweet,  far-ofif  Austral  days 
When  life  had  a  diviner  glow, 

When  hot  suns  whipped  my  blood  to  know 
Things  all  unseen,  then  I  could  go 
Into  thy  heart,  O  Yucatan! 

1  have  forgotten  what  I  saw, 

I  have  forgotten  what  I  knew. 
And  many  lands  I've  set  sail  for 
To  find  that  marvellous  spell  of  yore, 
Never  to  set  foot  on  thy  shore, 
O  haunting  land  of  Yucatan! 

But  sailing  I  have  passed  thee  by, 
And  leaning  on  the  white  ship's  rail 
Watched  thy  dim  hills  till  mystery 
Wrapped  thy  far  stillness  close  to  mc, 
And  I  have  breathed  "  'Tis  Yucatan!" 

"  'Tis  Yucatan,  'tis  Yucatan!" 
The  ship  is  sailing  far  away. 
The  coast  recedes,  the  dim  hills  fade, 
A  bubble-winding  track  we've  made. 
And  thou'rt  a  Dream,  O  Yucatan! 


28 


Talking  with  Soldiers 

The  mind  of  the  people  is  like  mud, 

From  which  arise  strange  and  beautiful  things, 

But  mud  is  none  the  less  mud, 

Though  it  bear  orchids  and  prophesying  Kings, 

Dreams,  trees,  and  water's  bright  babblings. 

It  has  found  form  and  colour  and  light, 
The  cold  glimmer  of  the  ice-wrapped  Poles; 
It  has  called  a  far-off  glow  Arcturus, 
And  some  pale  weeds,  lilies  of  the  valley. 

It  has  imagined  Virgil,  Helen  and  Cassandra; 
The  sack  of  Troy,  and  the  weeping  for  Hector — - 
Rearing  stark  up  'mid  all  this  beauty 
In  the  thick  dull  neck  of  Ajax. 

There  is  a  dark  Pine  in  Lapland, 

And  the  great  figured  Horn  of  the  Reindeer 

Moving  soundlessly  across  the  snow. 

Is  its  twin-brother,  double-dreamed. 

In  the  mind  of  a  far-off  people. 

29 


It  is  strange  that  a  little  mud 
Should  echo  with  sounds,  syllables  and  letters, 
Should  rise  up  and  call  a  mountain  Popocatapetl, 
And  a  green-leafed  wood  Oleander. 

These  are  the  ghosts  of  invisible  things; 
There  is  no  Lapland,  no  Helen  and  no  Hector; 
And  the  Reindeer  is  a  darkening  of  the  brain; 
And  Oleander  is  but  Oleander. 

Mary  Magdalena  and  the  vine  Lachrymae  Christi 
Were  like  ghosts  up  the  ghost  of  Vesuvius, 
As  I  sat  and  drank  wine  with  the  soldiers, 
As  I  sat  in  the  Inn  on  the  mountain, 
Watching  the  shadows  in  my  mind. 

The  mind  of  the  people  is  like  mud : 
Where  are  the  imperishable  things. 
The  ghosts  that  flicker  in  the  brain — 
Silent  women,  orchids  and  prophesying  Kings, 
Dreams,  trees,  and  water's  bright  babblings! 


30 


MaraK 

Blue  and  golden  was  her  robe  of  mosaic, 

Blue  and  golden  the  tips  of  her  shoes, 

The  blurred  wall  gathered  crystal  lilies  round  her. 

Green  lilies,  lilies  of  dimmed  water: 

There  was  no  white,  no  milk-white  touch  about  her^ 

All  was  lucent,  was  green  and  blue  and  gold. 

There  is  no  white  about  the  name  of  Mary, 

Mary  that  is  Marah — that  is  bitter, 

Mary  that  sounds  like  running  water 

Tinkling  like  a  host  of  muted  bells 

In  cavities  of  tinkling-atomed  limestone 

Where,  in  a  round  clear  drop^  of  water. 

Hang  the  tiny  voices,  the  voices  of  the  atoms. 

Singing  of  stalactites,  of  the  loveliness  of  Mary. 

Mary  it  is  they  dream  of  in  the  darkness  of  the  grotto, 

Mary  is  the  vision  and  the  song  inaudible 

Where  grow  the  Stalactites 

And  the  dimmer  Stalagmites; 

31 


It  cannot  be  seen  that  they  are  growing, 
In  the  darkness  there  is  no  glint  or  glitter, 
Only  the  loveliness  of  Mary, 
The  conception  and  the  bones  of  Mary. 


32 


The  Sky-Sent  Death 


•'A  German  aeroplane  flew  over  Greek  territory,  dropping  a  bomb  which 
killed  a  shepherd." 


Sitting  on  a  stone  a  Shepherd, 
Stone  and  Shepherd  sleeping, 
Under  the  high  blue  Attic  sky; 
Along  the  green  monotony 
Grey  sheep  creeping,  creeping. 

Deep  down  on  the  hill  and  valley, 
At  the  bottom  of  the  sunshine, 
Like  great  Ships  in  clearest  water, 
Water  holding  anchored  Shadows, 
Water  without  wave  or  ripple, 
Sunshine  deep  and  clear  and  heavy, 
Sunshine  like  a  booming  bell 
Made  of  purest  golden  metal, 
White  Ships  heavy  in  the  sky 
Sleep  with  anchored  shadow. 

33 


Pipe  a  song  in  that  still  air, 

And  the  song  would  be  of  crystal 
Snapped  in  silence,  or  a  bronze  vase 

Smooth  and  graceful,  curved  and  shining. 
Tell  an  old  tale  or  a  history; 

It  would  seem  a  slow  Procession 
Full  of  gestures:  limbs  and  torso 

White  and  rounded  in  the  sunlight. 

Sitting  on  a  stone  a  Shepherd, 
Stone  and  Shepherd  sleeping, 
Like  a  fragment  of  old  marble 
Dug  up  from  the  hillside  shadow. 

In  the  sunshine  deep  and  soundless 
Came  a  faint  metallic  humming; 
In  the  sunshine  clear  and  heavy 
Came  a  speck,  a  speck  of  shadow — 
Shepherd,  lift  your  head  and  listen, 
Listen  to  that  humming  Shadow! 
34 


Sitting  on  a  stone  a  Shepherd, 
Stone  and  Shepherd  sleeping, 
In  a  sleep  dreamless  as  water. 
Water  in  a  white  glass  beaker, 
Clear,  pellucid,  without  shadow; 
Underneath  a  sky-blue  crystal 
Sees  his  grey  sheep  creeping. 

In  the  sunshine  clear  and  heavy 
Shadow-fled  a  dark  hand  downward  ; 
In  the  sunshine  deep  and  soundless 
Burst  a  star-dropt  thing  of  thunder — 
Smoked  the  burnt  blue  air's  torn  veiling 
Drooping  softly  round  the  hillside. 

Boomed  the  silence  in  returning 
To  the  crater  in  the  hillside, 
To  the  red  earth  fresh  and  bleeding, 
To  the  mangled  heap  remaining: 
Far  away  that  humming  Shadow 
Vanished  in  the  azure  distance. 


35 


Sitting  on  a  stone  no  Shepherd, 
Stone  and  Shepherd  sleeping, 
But  across  the  hill  and  valley 
Grey  sheep  creeping,  creeping, 
Standing  carven  on  the  sky-line. 
Scattering  in  the  open  distance. 
Free,  in  no  man's  keeping. 


36 


Aeroplanes 

Iron  birds  floating  in  the  sky 

Prey  remorselessly 
On  the  tiny  obscure  dot 

That  is  some  great  city, 
Below,  men-insects  rend  and  tear. 

Women  wring  hands  of  pity. 

I  have  flown  a  hundred  miles 

Over  the  blurred  plain, 
Dropping  devastation  and  death, 

Blotting  men's  nerves  with  pain — 
Their  miserable  cries  were  tiny  as  insects' 

Calling  their  God  in  vain. 

The  sound  of  their  oaths  and  lamentations 
Could  not  even  reach  up  to  me, 

The  clouds  were  at  peace,  no  tribulation 
Disturbed  the  sky-harmony. 

Only  my  buzzing  clanged 
And  my  heart  beat  dreadfully. 


37 


I  laughed  as  I  silently  tossed  blind  Death 

Down  on  that  insect  people, 
Dreadful  it  was  in  the  peaceful  sky 

To  murder  that  insect  people, 
And  never  to  hear  a  sound  or  cry, 

Or  a  bell  toll  in  a  steeple. 

I  laughed  when  my  last  bloody  bomb  had  gone, 

I  shrieked  high  up  in  a  cloud, 
I  wanted  to  fly  in  the  face  of  their  God 

And  spit  my  disdain  aloud, 
I  ripped  through  the  terrified  whistling  air 

And  burst  through  the  earth's  damp  shroud. 

Ah!  it  was  blue  there,  wide  and  clear. 

Dancing  alive  in  the  sun. 
And  millions  of  bright  sweet  cymbals  rang 

Praising  the  deeds  I  had  done, 
And  millions  of  angels  cheering  stood 

Deep-columned  around  the  Sun. 

38 


And  then  I  stood  erect  and  cheered, 

Ay!  shouted  into  the  sky, 
I  filled  the  vast  semicircle  round, 

There  was  only  the  Sun  and  I, 
The  round,  red,  glittering,  blazing  Sun 

And  a  fluttering  human  fly. 


39 


Song:    The  Far-Off  Princess 

A  LITTLE  silkworm  is  spinning 
A  robe  for  a  far-off  Princess, 
A  foaming  wave  of  yellow 
'Mid  the  wood's  green  nakedness : 

It  is  her  hair  it  is  spinning 

As  fine  as  a  morning  mist 

That  washes  the  pale  gold  sunshine 

From  mountains  of  amethyst. 

The  far-off  Princess  she  is  lying 
With  only  a  greenwood  dress, 
By  the  side  of  a  fallen  Fountain, 
The  Fountain  of  AU-when-ness : 

It  is  deep  in  the  greenwood  forest, 
It  is  close  by  a  greenwood  tree, 
Far-off  gleam  the  amethyst  mountains 
And  the  amethystine  sea. 
40 


Magic 

I  LOVE  a  still  conservatory 
That's  full  of  giant,  breathless  palms, 

Azaleas,  clematis  and  vines, 

Whose  quietness  great  Trees  becalms, 

Filling  the  air  with  foliage, 
A  curved  and  dreamy  statuary. 

I  like  to  hear  a  cold,  pure  rill 

Of  v^ater  trickling  low,  afar, 
With  sudden  little  jerks  and  purls 

Into  a  tank,  or  stoneware  jar. 
The  song  of  a  tiny  sleeping  bird 

Held  like  a  shadow  in  its  trill. 

I  love  the  mossy  quietness 

That  grows  upon  the  great  stone  flags. 
The  dark  tree-ferns,  the  stag  horn  ferns, 

The  prehistoric,  antlered  stags 
That  carven  stand  and  stare  among 

The  silent,  ferny  wilderness. 

41 


And  are  they  birds  or  souls  that  flit 

Among  the  trees  so  silently, 
And  are  they  fish  or  ghosts  that  haunt 

The  still  pools  of  the  rockery? 
For  I  am  but  a  sculptured  rock 

As  in  that  magic  place  I  sit! 

Still  as  a  great  jewel  is  the  air 

With  boughs  and  leaves  smooth-carved  in  it, 
And  rocks  and  trees  and  giant  ferns 

And  blooms  with  inner  radiance  lit, 
And  naked  water  like  a  nymph 

That  dances  tireless,  slim  and  bare. 

I  watch  a  white  Nyanza  float 

Upon  a  green,  untroubled  pool, 
A  fairyland  Ophelia,  she 

Has  cast  herself  in  water  cool, 
And  lies  while  fairy  cymbals  ring 

Drowned  in  her  fairy  castle  moat. 


42 


The  goldfish  sings  a  winding  song 
Below  her  pale  and  waxen  face, 

The  water-nymph  is  dancing  by, 
Lifting  smooth  arms  with  mournful  grace, 

A  stainless  white  dream  she  floats  on 
While  fairies  beat  a  fairy  gong. 

Silent  the  Cattleyas  blaze 

And  thin  red  orchid  shapes  of  Death 
Peer  savagely  with  twisted  lips 

Sucking  an  eerie  phantom  breath 
With  that  bright,  spotted,  fever'd  lust 

That  watches  lonely  travellers  craze. 

Gigantic  mauve  and  hairy  leaves 

Hang  like  obliterated  faces 
Full  of  dim  unattained  expression. 

Such  as  haunts  virgin  forest  places 
When  Silence  leaps  among  the  trees 

And  the  echoing  heart  deceives. 


43 


Hollyhocks 

(The  hollyhock  is  the  holy  mallow,  brought  by  Crusaders  from  the  Holy 
Land.) 

I  LIE  in  bed  and  count  the  stars 

Through  a  window  in  the  wall, 

They  are  far  away  and  small, 
Lilliputian,  folk-tale  stars. 

Where  I  am,  it  is  quite  still, 

O  and  it  is  far  and  far 

Where  those  dreaming  stars  are. 
Out  beyond  the  window-sill. 

But  the  garden  warm  with  rain 
Blows  into  my  hollow  room. 
Great  boughs  slip  dew-loads  of  gloom. 

To  sparkle  jubilant  again. 

Trees  and  shrubs  and  plants  and  flowers 
Drink  the  glimmering  spirit-rain, 
Sing  unto  the  stars  that  wane 

Through  the  wet,  delirious  hours; 
44 


Roses  red,  star-drunken  reel 

Over  trim  white  garden  paths, 

White  roses  in  the  trellis  laths 
Glowing  bosoms  half  reveal; 

Naiad-blue,  frail,  dancing  bells 

Ring  a  jingle-jingle  rhyme 

Faint  upon  the  edge  of  thyme, 
And  the  proud,  plump  lily  swells. 

Iris  like  a  goddess  bold 

Purple  drapes  her  beauty  so 

That  her  magic  men  may  know — 
From  her  still  pool  rising  cold; 

Scarlet  Salvias  swoon  and  drift, 
Heavy  with  their  maddening  bloom. 
Silver  sanctuaries  of  gloom 

Their  heads  the  dew-sheathed  peonies  lift. 

These  drunken  Pagans  sing  all  night, 
All  but  an  enchanted  row 

45 


Of  hollyhocks  that  grow  and  grow 
By  the  house-wall  out  of  sight. 

Not  a  sound  or  note  they  make, 
But  they're  growing,  growing  iast, 
Skyward  they  are  marching,  past 

Pinks  and  foxgloves  in  their  wake. 

Pilgrim  soldiers,  you  I  fear 
In  the  midnight  deep  and  still, 
As  you  mount  the  dark  blue  hill 

Of  the  steep  sky  shining  clear: 

Your  marching  is  an  aweful  hymn 
In  the  garden  of  delight, 
In  the  mad  delirious  night, 

Giant  and  lonely  Cherubim! 

When  the  Sun  comes  you  shall  show 
Great  white  wings  and  nimbus  gold, 
And  your  glory  we'll  behold 

From  the  garden  far  below. 


46 


Uber  Allen  Gipfeln 

What  lies  beyond !   The  Moon 
Hangs  blood-red  in  the  valley, 
Where  below,  the  swift  black  waters  flow, 
Roaring  their  unrest  to  the  soundless  snow, 
Turning  their  heads  to  snap  their  spuming  fangs 
Like  wolves  that  howl  as  from  a  wood  they  go. 
And  there  She  overhangs — 
So  round,  so  red,  so  low. 

Shall  I,  too,  bare  my  teeth  at  thee,  O  Moon, 

Now  I  have  climbed  so  high 

And  these  white  Peaks  are  silent?    By  and  by 

Perhaps  they'll  speak,  or  is  this  all  they  say, 

This  empty  stare  while  the  pale  frozen  sky 

Sucks  out  thy  colour  until  small  and  grey 

Thy  wan  corpse  faintly  moves  throughout  the  day? 

Hast  thou  not  lured  me  here  with  thy  cold  light, 
Washing  the  mountains  with  a  waveless  flood. 
Intangible,  without  a  line  or  bubble, 

47 


But  yet  alive,  filling  the  straining  sight 

With  a  strange  brightness,  filling  the  empty  night 

With  a  great  splendour!    Pour  out  thy  ebbing  blood 

Into  my  soul  else  thou  escape  and  die, 

My  ardour  lost,  and  thou  a  frost-wraith  white. 

My  arms  close  fast  on  nothing.    Thou  dost  grow 

Paler  and  yet  more  pale.    The  white  Peaks  gleam, 

Shining  like  icy  Ghosts  across  the  snow 

As  thou  removest  high,  removest  high, 

High  out  of  reach,  of  thought,  of  hope — a  Dream 

That  called  me  up  the  valley  to  those  peaks, 

To  fade  elusively  into  the  sky. 


48 


Clapham  Common  (or  "The  Cap  of  Liberty") 

See  the  cock  on  one  leg  standing, 

With  his  diamond  eye 
Underneath  his  red  cap  hanging 

Sidewards  jauntily, 
See  him  strut,  and  pause  surveying 

Life  monarchically. 

What  is  it  his  eye  discovers, 

What  horizon  fills 
That  round  gaze  so  bright,  so  burnished. 

What  communication  thrills 
All  the  fiery  red  and  blackness 

Blooming  on  his  quills? 

Not  a  tiger,  not  a  lion. 

Not  an  eastern  potentate, 
Not  a  prophet  out  of  Zion, 

Not  a  western  magnate 
Gazed  with  such  an  agate  vision 

Outward  upon  fate! 

49 


Watch  him  slowly  put  his  foot  down: 

Such  deliberation, 
The  like  of  it  was  never  found 

In  councils  of  a  nation — 
No  emperor  had  such  a  mien 

At  his  coronation. 

Broods  he  there  on  ancient  glory 

By  the  holy  river, 
When  he  perched  among  the  tree-tops, 

And  the  silver  shiver 
Of  the  moonlight,  falling,  stirred  that 

Jewelled  bird  aquiver? 

Beadily  the  Moon  reflected 

That  round  staring  eye, 
Watching  all  the  forest  murder — > 

Spotted  tigers  drifting  by, 
Hooded  serpents,  elephants 

Sharpening  curves  of  ivory.    • 


Dim  and  wonderful  that  forest 

In  the  moonlight  melody, 
All  its  dream  leaf-cymbals  ringing 

As  in  whitest  ecstasy 
Glides  the  river,  a  moon-spirit 

Through  the  forest  shadowy. 

Perched  up  high  within  the  branches. 

Black  as  night  without  a  star. 
Red  as  pools  of  blood  in  moonlight. 

Silent  as  great  flowers  are, 
Dreamed  the  violent,  clanging  sun-birds 

Lustrous  and  bizarre. 

Still  he  hears  the  glimmering  river 

Bubbling  from  the  Moon, 
And  the  insane,  glittering  forest 

Shrieks  like  a  baboon, 
Dancing  in  a  ring  of  white  flowers 

In  the  sky  aswoon: 

51 


The  white,  the  dim,  tranced  flowers  of  heaven 

Naked,  houri-pale  they  drift. 
In  the  forest  sleep  their  shadows, 

Ghosts  of  gold  the  tigers  lift 
Their  great  heads  by  the  cool  moonbeam 

Running  through  the  forest  swift. 

Lilies,  lilies,  dreams  of  lilies. 
Spectral  orchids  faint  and  dim, 

Globular  bright  fruits  hang  ghostly 
From  his  round  eye's  reddened  rim. 

In  that  tiny  glittering  circle 
Stars  and  Moon  and  Forest  swim. 

Gone  is  all  that  pageant  beauty, 

Gone  the  forest's  lyric  song, 
The  Hosannas  of  the  lotus, 

Trumpetings  of  mammoths  strong, 
And  the  crying  of  the  tigers 

The  dense  banks  of  the  Moon  along! 
52 


Gone  the  panting,  silent  madness 

Of  love  hunting  magical, 
Gone  the  soft  and  dreamy  singing 

Of  still  boughs  fantastical, 
Gone  the  slim  white  running  rivers 

In  the  gloom  monastical! 

Gone  the  spirits  dark  and  chattering 
Flitting  through  the  countless  trees, 

Trooping  slim,  grotesque  and  agile 
Hand  in  hand  in  companies; 

Gone  the  distant,  mournful  tom-tom 
Of  some  village  mysteries! 

Now  a  poor  bedraggled  prisoner 

With  a  proud  and  scornful  mien, 
Living  on  a  far-off  memory, 

Magnificence  he  ne'er  has  seen, 
Two  things  only  still  remaining 

Of  the  glory  that  has  been: 

53 


The  Moon  that  climbs  o'er  miles  of  houses 

White  and  pitiful, 
Floods  the  narrow  green  with  splendour: 

He  stands  sorrowful, 
Lonely  in  the  hollow  circle 

Of  that  vision  wonderful. 

Slowly  in  the  east  arises 
Like  a  Dream  the  ancient  Sun, 

From  within  him  bubbles  upward 
That  loud  hymn  which  once  begun 

Made  blood-bright  the  dusky  forest, 
Golden  all  its  rivers  run. 

Now  the  battled  blood- red  ruin, 

Now  the  clouds  of  agony, 
All  earth's  chanting,  all  earth's  dying 

Flame  in  that  red  eye, 
Underneath  its  scarlet  hanging 

Cap  of  liberty. 


54 


And  he  chants  forgotten  splendours, 
Chants  of  glory  come  again, 

All  the  Mountains  round  him  singing, 
Ringing  cymbals  Sky  and  Plain 

Blaring  to  omnipotent  tyrants 
Their  omnipotent  disdain. 


55 


Sea-Madness 


56 


The  glimmering  voice  of  the  sea 
Is  caught  in  the  shadowed  land, 
A  bird  netted;  mournfully 
It  flutters  in  vain  to  be  free, 
It  is  fluttering  hopelessly 
Along  the  edge  of  sand. 

The  silver  shells  of  the  sea 
Agape  and  hollow  roar, 
Devils  cast  up  by  the  sea, 
Blinking  and  silvery 
In  a  moon-white  ecstasy 
They  lie  and  bellow  and  roar: 

They  roar  at  the  glimmering  Moon, 

They  roar  for  ever  afraid 

Of  the  hollow  empty  world 

Where  they  have  been  suddenly  hurled 

Out  of  the  full  peace  furled 

In  the  dim  sea  where  they  were  laid. 


And  the  Stranger  that  walks  by  the  sea, 
Watching  the  bright  waves  curled 
With  songs  of  sweet  ecstasy, 
With  harping  and  minstrelsy, 
With  clouds  riding  silently 
Will  wander  out  of  the  world : 

Alone  the  Moon  will  hover 
Above  the  glimmering  shore, 
His  soul  will  be  hollowed  under 
To  a  conch  dinned  thin  with  thunder. 
And  his  body  lying  asunder 
W^here  the  silver  shells  roar: 

His  body  silvered  over 
By  the  Moon  and  the  flowing  tide, 
And  his  hair  with  sea-weed  streaming, 
And  the  whites  of  his  eye-balls  gleaming. 
And  a  smooth  sea  sleepily  dreaming. 
Lapping  against  his  side. 


57 


I  Am  a  Hunter 

I  AM  a  hunter  after  wayward  words 

That  I  may  press  them  into  service  meet 

For  their  rare  beauty.    I  would  have  them  greet 

My  lady  proudly,  flashing  like  white  swords 

Drawn  in  the  dark  of  silence.    Also  I  seek 

Among  the  shadows  of  the  syllables, 

Among  sweet  ringing  vowels,  that  spell  of  spells 

Which  gravely  said  will  bring  unto  her  cheek 

The  crimson  heart's  blood.    Even,  O  dumb  night, 

Do  I  desire  to  capture  thy  deep  sounds, 

Those  that  in  darkness  wander,  long,  black  hounds 

Chasing  the  stars  their  quarry,  dead  to  sight, 

With  baying  dead  to  keenest  mortal  ears. 

Softer  than  voices  stilled  or  the  quiet  splash  of  tears. 


The  Music  of  a  Tree 

Once,  walking  home,  I  passed  beneath  a  Tree, 
It  filled  the  air  like  dark  stone  statuary, 

It  was  so  quiet  and  still. 

Its  thick  green  leaves  a  hill 
Of  strange  and  faint  earth-branching  melody: 

Over  a  wall  it  hung  its  leaf-starred  wood. 
And  as  I  lonely  there  beneath  it  stood. 

In  that  sky-hollow  street 

Where  rang  no  human  feet. 
Sweet  music  flowed  and  filled  me  with  its  flood ; 

And  all  my  weariness  then  fell  away, 
The  houses  were  more  lovely  than  by  day; 

The  Moon  and  that  old  Tree 

Sang  there;  and  secretly. 
With  throbbing  heart,  tip-toe  I  stole  away. 


59 


Haystacks 

Winding  across  a  highland  on  a  wild  October  day, 
By  small  and  yellow  haystacks  the  road  crept  humbly 

on, 
Blue  herds  of  dark-maned  stallions  tossed  madly  in  the 

sky, 
And  raced  across  the  blots  of  woods  and  fields  of  wind- 
quiet  stone. 

Purple  and  gold  and  violet  greys  and  gleaming  shades 

unknown 
Leaped  up  and  flashed  and  faded  out  within  the  mar- 
velling soul 
That,  creeping  on  the  narrow  road,  passed  brooding, 

squat  and  still 
Those  small  dim  stacks  as  dreams  heaped  up  by  men  in 

bitter  toil : 
60 


As  dreams  heaped  up,  as  memoried  hills,  as  generations 

gone 
Into  the  ground,  and  here  arisen  as  quiet  as  hills  of 

stone ; 
But  linked  along  the  roads  they  built  to  catch  each  hu- 
man sound 
That  quavering  in  the  cold  wind-light  is  sinking  to  its 

doom. 

And  still  the  dark  blue  stallions  race  and  toss  white 

flakes  of  foam, 
And  still  the  dark  fields  lie  as  quiet  as  wind-forsaken 

stone. 
And  still  along  that  humble  road  the  silent  soul  plods 

on, 
And  still  the  small  dim  stacks  lie  there,  the  dreams  of 

men  unknown. 


6i 


The  Shepherd  Goes  to  War 

When  Dawn  drew  near  and  tree  or  hill 
Stood  slowly  bright,  and  clear  and  still, 
It  lit  the  Shepherd,  a  dark  rock 
Amid  his  wide,  grey,  tumbling  flock; 

He  stands  as  stand  great  ancient  trees 
When  streams  leap  loud  about  their  knees; 
And  he  moves  slow  and  tranquilly 
As  clouds  across  a  peaceful  sky. 

There  is  no  voice  for  him  to  hear, 
Save  from  men  coming  once  a  year 
Beyond  that  haze-blue  mountain  bar, 
Where  the  eastern  cities  are. 

In  still  repose  his  features  sleep. 
He  grows  to  look  like  his  own  sheep; 
And  priestlike  at  each  dawn  he  stands, 
An  ancient  blessing  on  those  lands. 

The  days,  the  years,  half  life  slips  by 
Under  that  bright  Australian  sky: 
62 


The  gum  trees  are  a  rustling  dream 
Upon  the  sunshine's  golden  stream: 

The  whip-bird  and  the  cockatoo, 
They  are  the  cries  of  dream-birds  too, 
And  more  unearthly  and  unreal 
Grows  Kookaburra's  mocking  peal. 

Still  magic  is  the  country  round, 

Dead  branches  strew  the  snake-bright  ground : 

In  luminous  transparency 

Quivers  each  thin-leaved,  blue-green  tree; 

There  is  an  ecstasy  of  light, 
And  silence  is  as  lightning  bright: 
The  carthflower,  air,  a  still,  blue  blaze 
Springs  from  earth's  pot  those  rainless  days. 

The  Shepherd  sees  as  in  a  glass 
The  flitting  lyre-birds  soundless  pass, 
The  trees  in  sunlight  standing  deep, 
A  world  in  an  enchanted  sleep. 


63 


Nor  ice,  nor  snow,  nor  rough  winds  come 
Unto  him  from  his  father's  home, 
Old  and  remote  in  that  grey  sea 
Of  cold,  mist-haunted  memory. 

But  the  men  coming  once  a  year 

Tell  tales  incredible  to  hear, 

Tales  that  sound  legendary  and  dim, 

From  long-dead  camp  fires  brought  to  him. 

And  brooding  when  the  men  have  done, 
How  fifty  happy  years  are  gone. 
Not  knowing  how,  not  knowing  why. 
He  turns  towards  the  eastern  sky; 

There,  clasped  with  towns,  meet  land  and  sea, 
Thence  sail  the  ships  of  destiny — 
They  also  sail  those  ships  on  high, 
Winged  with  deep  purpose,  through  the  sky: 

He  gazed  at  that  immenser  sea. 

And  those  travelling  worlds  gleamed  steadily; 


64 


Then,  shouting  faintly  from  a  star, 
A  voice  called  that  old  man  to  war. 

w  ^  «  ^  *  « 

The  Shepherd  reached  the  coast, — amazed 
On  Sydney's  crowded  streets  he  gazed; 
On  Circular  Quay,  with  parted  lips, 
He  stared  upon  the  thronging  ships. 

He  sailed  across  the  summer  sea, 
And  fighting  through  Gallipoli, 
He  often  hungered  and  thirsted  till 
Nought  stirred  in  him  save  human  will. 

To  France  from  Suvia  they  were  brought. 
Time  faded  from  them  as  they  fought 
And  scratched  and  dug,  with  only  the  sky 
To  stare  at  as  they  fall  and  die. 

Unhurt  in  victory's  ebb  and  flow. 
He  watched  friends  unreturning  go ; 


6j 


Then  on  the  Sbmme  was  hit,  and  lay 
At  Denmark  Hill  for  many  a  day. 

One  of  his  countrywomen  found 
Him  there,  and  twice  a  week  came  round- 
But  he  spake  little,  and  'twould  mostly  be 
About  their  own  far-off  country: 

And  in  a  silence  'twould  appear 
Glittering  with  light  and  ghostly  clear; 
And  she  secretly  wondered  it  should  seem 
So  strange,  so  beautiful  a  dream. 

And  Winter  passed  and  Spring  returned, 
His  soul,  reviving,  homeward  yearned; 
War  was  no  more  for  him,  he  knew, 
Than  that  dim  boom  the  East  wind  blew. 

And  when  she  came  to  him  one  day, 
He  said:  *'In  a  month  I  shall  sail  away; 
These  cities  and  armies  then  shall  seem 
More  far,  more  faint  than  any  dream: 
66 


"And  I  shall  stand  amid  my  sheep 
In  that  still  light  I  shall  sink  deep; 
The  shouting  of  nations  clashed  in  war 
Shall  not  a  leaf  or  feather  jar; 

"But  as  the  days  pass  I  shall  stand 
Lost  between  dream  and  dream;  no  land, 
No  thing  at  all  shall  solid  be — 
But  cries  of  joy  and  mystery: 

"For  I  shall  see  behind  my  sheep 
Tall  ships  on  death-pale  oceans  leap; 
Dark  hulls  with  armed  men's  faces  white 
Crowded  beneath  the  stars'  cold  light. 

"And  ships  that  gape  and  shudder  down, 
And  soft,  bright  bubbles  of  men  that  drown, 
And  the  same  calm,  watching  Moon  o'erhead 
My  sheep  and  those  wide-eyed  drifting  dead : 

"And  the  dim  hordes  of  men  that  sigh 
Moon-tossed,  sun-cracked,  uneasily, 


67 


Shall  move  amid  my  sightless  sheep 
When  women  long  have  ceased  to  weep; 

"And  this  vast  city's  terrible  roar 
Shall  be  silent  there  as  it  was  before; 
Though  dark  among  the  summer  flowers 
Hang  its  streets,  its  steeples  and  its  towers ; 

"And  faces  that  were  torn  from  speech 
And  in  a  dream  the  soul  beseech, 
My  comrades  of  a  month  or  day, 
With  me  a  little  while  shall  stay. 

"And  that  still  place  shall  be  the  cup 
Where  this  world's  spirit  gathered  up 
Will  be  lifted  silently 
Day  by  day  unto  the  sky: 

"Until  the  brightness  of  the  stars 
Is  gone  from  me,  and  all  the  wars 
Of  earth  cannot  refill  my  eyes 
Again  with  sheep  and  trees  and  skies." 
68 


A  Ritual  Dance 

I.  The  Dance 

In  the  black  glitter  of  night  the  grey  vapour  forest 
Lies  a  dark  Ghost  in  the  water,  motionless,  dark; 
Like  a  corpse  by  the  bank  fallen,  and  hopelessly  rotting 
Where  the  thin  silver  soul  of  the  stars  silently  dances. 

The  flov^ers  are  closed,  the  birds  are  carved  on  the  trees, 
When  out  of  the  forest  glide  hundreds  of  spear-holding 

shadows ; 
In  smooth  dark  ivory  bodies  their  eyeballs  gleaming, 
Forming  a  gesturing  circle  beneath  the  Moon. 

The  bright-eyed  shadows,  the  tribe  in  ritual  gathered. 

Are  dancing  and  howling,  the  embryo  soul  of  the  na- 
tion : 

In  loud  drum-beating  monotonous  the  tightly  stretched 

skins 

Of  oxen  that  stared  at  the  stars  are  singing  wild  paeans : 

69 


Wild  paeans  for  food  that  magically  grew  in  the  clear- 
ings 
Wheii  he  that  was  slain  was  buried  and  is  resurrected, 
And  a  green  mist  arose  from  the  mud  and  shone  in  the 

Moon, 
A  great  delirium  of  faces,  a  new  generation. 

The  thin  wafer  Moon  it  is  there,  it  is  there  in  the  sky, 
The  hand-linked  circle  raise  faces  of  mad  exaltation — 
Dance,  O  you  Hunters,  leap  madly  upon  the  flung 

shields. 
Shoot  arrows  into  the  sky,  thin  moon-seeking  needles: 

Now  you  shall  have  a  harvest,  a  belly-full  rapture. 
There  shall  be.  many  fat  women,  full  grown,  and 

smoother  than  honey, 
Their  limbs  like  ivory  rounded,  and  firm  as  a  berry. 
Their  lips  full  of  food,  and  their  eyes  mad  with  hunger 

for  men! 

The  heat  of  the  earth  arises,  a  faint  love-mist 

Wan  with  over-desiring,  and  in  the  marshes 
70 


Blindly  the  mud  stirs,  clouding  in  the  dark  shining 

water, 
And  troubling  the  still  soft  swarms  of  fallen  stars. 

There  is  bright  sweat  upon  the  bodies  of  cattle, 
Great  vials  of  life  motionless  in  the  moonlight, 
Breathing  faint  mists  over  the  warm,  damp  ground; 
And  the  cry  of  a  dancer  rings  through  the  shadowy 

forest. 

The  tiger  is  seeking  his  mate,  and  his  glassy  eyes 
Are  purple  and  shot  with  starlight  in  the  grass  shining, 
The  fiery  grass  tortured  out  of  the  mud  and  writhing 
Under  the  sun,  now  shivering  and  pale  in  the  Moon. 

The  shadows  are  dancing,  dancing,  dancing,  dancing. 
The  grey  vapour  arms  of  the  forest  lie  dreaming  around 

them; 
The  cold,  shining  moonlight  falls  from  their  bodies  and 

faces, 

But  caught  in  their  eyes  lies  prisoned  and  faintly  gleam- 

,  ing: 

71 


And  they  return  to  their  dwellings  within  the  grey 

forest, 
Into  their  dark  huts  burying  the  moonlight  with  them, 
Burying  the  trees  and  the  stars  and  the  flowing  river, 
And  the  glittering  spears,  and  their  dark,  evocative  ges- 
tures. 

II.  Sleep 

Hollow  the  world  in  the  moonlit  hour  when  the  birds 

are  shadows  small. 
Lost  in  the  swarm  of  giant  leaves  and  myriad  branches 

tall; 
When  vast  thick  boughs  hang  across  the  sky  like  solid 

limbs  of  night. 
Dug  from  still  quarries  of  grey-black  air  by  the  pale 

transparent  light. 
And  the  purple  and  golden  blooms  of  the  sun,  each 

crimson  and  spotted  flower. 
Are  folded  up,  or  have  faded  away,  as  that  still  intan- 
gible power 
72 


Floats  out  of  the  sky,  falls  shimmering  down,  a  silver- 
shadowy  bloom, 
On  the  spear-pointed  forest  a  fragile  crown,  in  the  soul 

a  soft,  bright  gloom; 
Hollow  the  world  when  the  shadow  of  man  lies  prone 

and  still  on  its  floor, 
And  the  moonlight  shut  from  his  empty  heart  weeps 

softly  against  his  door, 
And  his  terror  and  joy  but  a  little  dream  in  the  corner 

of  his  house. 
And  his  voice  dead  in  the  darkness  'mid  the  twittering 

of  a  mouse. 

III.  The  Empty  Forest 

Hollow  the  world!  hollow  the  world! 

And  its  dancers  shadow-grey; 
And  the  Moon  a  silver-shadov^  bloom 

Fading  and  falling  away; 
And  the  forest's  grey  vapour,  and  all  the  trees 

73 


Shadows  against  the  sky; 
And  the  soul  of  man  and  his  ecstasies 

A  night- forgotten  cry. 
Hollow  the  world!  hollow  the  world  1 


74 


Song 


The  Sun  has  come,  I  know; 

But  yesterday  I  stood 

Beside  it  in  the  wood — 
But  O  how  pale,  how  softly  it  did  glow! 

I  stooped  to  warm  my  hands 
Before  its  rain-washed  gold, 
But  it  was  pebbly-cold, 

Startled  to  find  itself  in  these  dark  lands! 


75 


The  Robber 


76 


The  trees  were  taller  than  the  night, 
And  through  my  window  square, 

Earth-stupefied,  great  oranges 
Drowsed  in  the  leaf-carved  air. 

Into  that  tree-top  crowded  dream 
A  white  arm  stretched,  and  soon 

Those  green-gold  oranges  were  plucked, 
Were  sucked  pale  by  the  Moon. 

And  white  and  still  that  robber  lay 

On  the  frail  boughs  asleep, 
Eating  the  solid  substance  through 

In  silence  clear  and  deep. 

Suddenly  he  went,  and  then 
The  wood  was  dark  as  death : 

Come  back,  O  robber;  robber,  come; 
These  grey  trees  are  but  breath ; 


These  grey  trees  are  but  breath,  the  Night 
Is  a  wind-filled,  dream-filled  Hall 

But  on  the  mirror  of  the  air 
The  wood  wreathed  dark  and  talU 

No  movement  and  no  sound  there  was 

Within  that  silent  House, 
Behind  a  cloud  the  Robber  laughed 

In  a  mad  white  carouse. 


77 


Kent  in  War 


The  pebbly  brook  is  cold  to-night, 

Its  water  soft  as  air; 
A  clear,  cold,  crystal-bodied  wind 

Shadowless  and  bare; 
Leaping  and  running  in  this  world 

Where  dark-horned  cattle  stare: 

Where  dark-horned  cattle  stare,  hoof-firm 
On  the  dark  pavement  of  the  sky, 

And  trees  are  mummies  swathed  in  sleep, 
And  small  dark  hills  crowd  wearily: 

Soft  multitudes  of  snow-grey  clouds 
Without  a  sound  march  by. 

Down  at  the  bottom  of  the  road 

I  smell  the  woody  damp 
Of  that  cold  spirit  in  the  grass. 

And  leave  my  hill-top  camp — 
Its  long  gun  pointing  in  the  sky — 

And  take  the  Moon  for  lamp. 


78 


I  stop  beside  the  bright  cold  glint 

Of  that  thin  spirit  in  the  grass, 
So  gay  it  is,  so  innocent! 

I  watch  its  sparkling  footsteps  pass 
Lightly  from  smooth  round  stone  to  stone, 

Hid  in  the  dew-hung  grass. 

My  lamp  shines  in  the  globes  of  dew, 

And  leaps  into  that  crystal  wind 
Running  along  the  shaken  grass 

To  each  dark  hole  that  it  can  find — 
The  crystal  wind,  the  Moon  my  lamp. 

Have  vanished  in  a  wood  that's  blind. 

High  lies  my  small,  my  shadowy  camp, 
Crowded  about  by  small  dark  hills; 

With  sudden  small  white  flowers  the  sky 
Above  the  woods'  dark  greenness  fills; 

And  hosts  of  dark-browed,  muttering  trees 
In  trance  the  white  Moon  stills. 

79 


I  move  among  their  tall  grey  forms, 
A  thin  moon-glimmering,  wandering  Ghost, 

Who  takes  his  lantern  through  the  world 
In  search  of  life  that  he  has  lost, 

While  watching  by  that  long,  lean  gun 
Up  on  his  small  hill  post. 


80 


Death's  Men 

Under  a  grey  October  sky 

The  little  squads  that  drill 
Click  arms  and  legs  mechanically, 

Emptied  of  ragged  will : 

Of  ragged  will  that  frets  the  sky, 

From  crags  jut  rag;^ed  Pines; 
A  wayward  immortality, 

That  flies  from  Death's  trim  lines. 

The  men  of  Death  stand  trim  and  neat, 

Their  faces  stiff  as  stone. 
Click,  clack,  go  four  and  twenty  feet 

From  twelve  machines  of  bone. 

"Click,  clack,  left!  right!  form  fours!  incline!" 

The  jack-box  sergeant  cries; 
For  twelve  erect  and  wooden  dolls 

One  clockwork  doll  replies. 

8i 


And  twelve  souls  wander  mid  'still  clouds 

In  a  land  of  snow-drooped  trees, 
Faint,  foaming  streams  fall  in  grey  hills 

Like  beards  in  old  men's  knees. 

Old  men,  old  hills,  old  kings,  their  beards 

Cold  stone-grey,  still  cascades 
Hung  high  above  this  shuddering  earth 

Where  the  red  blood  sinks  and  fades. 

Then  the  quietness  of  all  ancient  things, 

Their  round  and  full  repose 
As  balm  upon  twelve  wandering  souls 

Down  from  the  grey  sky  flows. 

The  rooks  from  out  the  tall,  gaunt  trees 

In  shrieking  circles  pass; 
Click,  clack,  click,  clack  go  Death's  trim  men 

Across  the  Autumn  grass. 


B2 


Sunflowers 


In  Erith's  streets  I  saw  them  come, 

I  saw  them  come ; 
They  stood  against  a  villa  wall, 
They  were  as  strangers,  mournful  all, 

Far  from  their  home; 
With  dust  blew  down  the  dirty  streets. 

The  eager  children's  call. 

In  Erith's  streets  where  hovels  lie. 

Close  packed  and  trim 
They  came,  feeling  the  unseen  sky, 
In  that  sad  street  where  a  child's  bright  cry 

Grows  quickly  dim 
And  slatternly  women  sit  and  stare. 

And  then  go  in  and  die. 

I  saw  their  faces  when  they  woke 

In  Erith's  streets ; 
It  was  a  wonder  men  could  see 


83' 


Those  golden  sons  of  misery 

In  Erith's  streets, 
In  Erith's  streets  and  marvel  not 

At  such  a  mystery! 


84 


Recollecting  a  Visit 

[To  W.B.Yeats] 

It  is  most  pitiful  to  watch  men  go 

In  search  of  beauty  with  despairing  eyes, 

And  what  it  is  they  lack  as  this  world  lies 

Open  before  their  gaze  they  do  not  know. 

These  porcelain  skies  with  billows  of  graven  snow 

They  paint  on  cold,  thin  cups,  and  draw  from  strings 

Voices  of  mourning  winds  and  sense  of  wings. 

From  woods  rob  sad-faced  flowers  and  bid  them  grow 

Nearer  their  souls;  ay,  creep  out  in  the  night 

And  steal  the  stars  and  the  bright  Moon  from  Heaven, 

And  bring  them  home  to  decorate  their  dreams — 

My  God!  it  is  a  strange  and  pitiful  sight 

To  see  the  treasury  of  a  poet's  room, 

And  him  alone  there,  shrouded  in  beauty's  gloom! 


8^ 


Music 

When  the  last  note  is  played  and  void  the  hall, 
I  sometimes  think  that  then  music  begins, 
Scattered  on  chairs  lie  horns  and  violins, 
The  Harp  droops  silent,  standing  by  the  wall; 
On  the  live  ear  no  sounds  of  music  fall. 
The  organ  sleeps,  coiled  in  its  branching  wood; 
But  this  deep  soundlessness  is  music's  food. 
This  quiet  is  big  with  thunder:  if  I  call. 
At  once  a  thousand  spirits  rave  and  cry; 
Those  instruments  gape,  quivering  helplessly, 
With  strangled  voices  vibrant  and  wild  they  lie; 
And  I  can  hear  in  that  great  solitude 
Madness  and  grief,  not  the  smooth  harmony 
That  presently,  subdued,  they'll  sing  to  me. 


86 


Epithalamium  for  a  Modern  Wedding 

^*We  that  so  long  have  held  each  other  dear, 
Join  hands,  Beloved;  purposing  to  be 

One  hand  and  life,  one  effort  and  career. 
One  soul  and  self,  into  Eternity," 

Can  the  lover  share  his  soul, 
Or  the  mistress  show  her  mind; 

Can  the  body  beauty  share, 
Or  lust  satisfaction  find? 

Marriage  is  but  keeping  house, 

Sharing  food  and  company, 
What  has  this  to  do  with  love 

Or  the  body's  beauty? 

If  love  means  affection,  I 

Love  old  trees,  hats,  coats  and  things, 
Anything  that's  been  with  me 

In  my  daily  sufferings. 


87 


That  is  how  one  loves  a  wife — 
There's  a  human  interest  too, 

And  a  pity  for  the  days 
We  so  soon  live  through. 

What  has  this  to  do  with  love, 

The  anguish  and  the  sharp  despair, 

The  madness  roving  in  the  blood 
Because  a  girl  or  hill  is  fair? 

I  have  stared  upon  a  dawn 
And  trembled  like  a  man  in  love; 

A  man  in  love  I  was,  and  I 

Could  not  speak  and  could  not  move. 

I  no  longer  seek  to  hold 

Beauty  with  enchanted  eyes; 

'Tis  vain,  for  beauty  dies,  I  know, 
I  know  beauty  dies. 
88 


Ring  the  merry  marriage  bells, 
That  most  melancholy  sound! 

When  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride 
Go  to  find  what  none  has  found. 

All  the  old  wives  grimly  there 
Pleased  to  see  love's  sudden  end, 

Beauty's  last  wild  wood-note  blown. 
Death  the  solitary  friend. 

Ay!  Death  sitting  in  the  church, 
Busy  getting  breath  anew, 

Tuning  up  the  magic  horn 
That  the  old  lust  blew. 


89 


Soldiers  in  a  Small  Camp 

There  is  a  camp  upon  a  rounded  hill 
Where  men  do  sleep  more  closely  to  the  stars, 
And  tree-like  shapes  stand  at  its  entrances, 
Beside  the  small,  dark,  shadow-soldiery. 

Deep  in  the  gloom  of  days  of  isolation, 
Withdrawn,  high-up  from  the  low,  murmuring  town, 
These  shadows  sit,  drooping  around  their  fires, 
Or  move  as  winds  dark-waving  in  a  wood: 

Staring  at  cattle  on  a  neighbouring  hill 
They  are  oblivious  as  is  stone  or  grass — 
The  clouds  passed  voiceless  over,  and  the  sun 
Rose,  and  lit  trees,  and  vanished  utterly. 

Then  in  the  awful  beauty  of  the  world, 
When  stars  are  singing  in  dark  ecstasy. 
Those  ox-like  soldiers  sit  collected  round 
A  thin,  metallic  echo  of  human  song: 
90 


And  click  their  feet  and  clap  their  hands  in  time, 
And  wag  their  heads,  and  make  the  white  ghost  owl 
Flit  from  its  branch — but  still  those  tree-like  shapes 
Stand  like  archangels  dark-winged  in  the  sky. 

And  presently  the  soldiers  cease  to  stir; 
The  thin  voice  sinks,  and  all  at  once  is  dead; 
They  lie  down  on  their  planks  and  hear  the  wind, 
And  feel  the  darkness  fumbling  at  their  souls. 

They  lie  in  rows  as  stiff  as  tombs  or  trees, 
Their  eyeballs  imageless,  like  marble  still; 
And  secretly  they  feel  that  roof  and  walls 
Are  gone,  and  that  they  stare  into  the  sky. 

It  is  so  black,  so  black,  so  black,  so  black. 

Those  black  winged  shapes  have  stretched  across  the 

world, 
Have  swallowed  up  the  stars,  and  if  the  sun 

Rises  again,  it  will  be  black,  black,  BLACK. 

91 


Song 


Gently,  sorrowfully  sang  the  maid 
Sowing  the  ploughed  field  over, 

And  her  song  was  only: 
''Come!  O  my  lover!" 

Strangely,  strangely  shone  the  light,, 

Stilly  wound  the  river: 
"Thy  love  is  a  dead  man, 

He'll  come  back  never." 

Sadly,  sadly,  passed  the  maid 
The  fading  dark  hills  over; 

Still  her  song  far,  far  away  said: 
''Come!  O  my  lover!" 


92 


Silence 

It  was  bright  day,  and  all  the  trees  were  still 

In  the  deep  valley,  and  the  dim  Sun  glowed; 

The  clay  in  hard-baked  fire  along  the  hill 

Leapt  through  dark  trunks  to  apples  green  and  gold, 

Smooth,  hard  and  cold,  they  shone  like  lamps  of  stone: 

They  were  bright  bubbles  bursting  from  the  trees, 
Swollen  and  still  among  the  dark  green  boughs; 
On  their  bright  skins  the  shadows  of  the  leaves 
Seemed  the  faint  ghosts  of  summers  long  since  gone. 
Faint  ghosts  of  ghosts,  the  dreams  of  ghostly  eyes. 

There  was  no  sound  between  those  breathless  hills, 
Only  the  dim  Sun  hung  there,  nothing  moved; 
The  thronged,  massed,  crowded  multitude  of  leaves 
Hung  like  dumb  tongues  that  loll  and  gasp  for  air: 
The  grass  was  thick  and  still  between  the  trees. 

93 


There  were  big  apples  lying  on  the  ground, 
Shining,  quite  still,  as  though  they  had  been  stunned 
By  some  great  violent  spirit  stalking  through, 
Leaving  a  deep  and  supernatural  calm 
Round  a  dead  beetle  upturned  in  a  furrow,, 

A  valley  filled  with  dark,  quiet,  leaf-thick  trees, 
Loaded  with  green,  cold,  faintly  shining  suns; 
And  in  the  sky  a  great  dim  burning  disc! — 
Madness  it  is  to  watch  these  twisted  trunks 
And  to  see  nothing  move  and  hear  no  sound! 

Let's  make  a  noise,  Hey! .  .  .  Hey! .  .  .  Hullo!    Hullo! 


94 


Soldiers 

Trees  struggling  fiercely  to  the  sky,  and  winds  that  leap 

and  cry, 

Are  soldiers  of  the  spinning  earth,  and  images  of  beauty, 

They  are  the  songs  of  maddened  clay,  the  wild  delirious 

dreams, 

That  clothed  in  khaki,  storm  a  hill,  and  melt  away  in 

blood. 

Like  rocks  and  crags,  their  limbs  are  torn  from  depths 

of  outward  calm, 
Let  them  embrace  their  agony,  and  weep  and  kiss  their 

hands, 
And  gaily  seize  what  rapture  lies  in  banners  and  in 

drums, 
For  youth  was  meant  to  bleed  and  die,  or  sorrowfully 

grow  old. 
95 


They  are  but  common,  anguished  men,  waked  from  an 

opiate  dream 
I'o  see  the  lightning  flash  of  life,  ere  they  sink  down 

again. 
Securer  from  its  misery,  its  beauty  and  its  grief — 
They  are  like  ancient  songs  that  speak  and  then  lie  long 

unsung. 

It  matters  not  what  symbols  are  inscribed  upon  their 

van, 

They  are  the  symbols  and  the  songs.  Gesticulating  trees 

Thus  stand  upon  the  hills  and  rave  towards  the  speech- 
less sky, 

But  in  the  end  sink  feebly  down  and  fade  into  the 

ground. 

And  from  the  bodies  of  sweet  girls  as  fair  and  white  as 

flowers 
The  soldiers  rise  to  storm  foul  hills,  in  search  of  words 

and  dreams, 

96 


And  ebb  away  among  the  stones  to  feed  the  gleaming 

corn, 
That  with  their  beauty  shall  arise  and  quiver  in  the 

wind! 

O  you  wise  stones  that  lie  and  soak  the  beauteous  blood 

of  men, 
The  loveliness  of  all  earth's  crops,  the  soft  entreating 

eyes 
Of  fawn-like  girls,  have  you  no  tale,  no  sweet  consoling 

hope 
To  utter  as  we  stand  in  pain,  and  gaze  upon  the  dead? 

Exultantly  you  seem  to  stare,  and  wilder  wave  the  trees, 
There  is  some  joy  in  this  fierce  earth  that  echoes  in  my 

soul. 
Soldiers,  arise!     Stand  up,  you  slain!  stand  up,  the 

silence  fills! 
The  trumpet  of  immortal  Death  rings  in  the  crumbling 

hills. 

97 


Illusion 

She  stood  like  Spring  before  my  Winter  door, 
Paler  than  dawn,  wind-swept  and  delicate; 
And  her  small  hands,  clasped  like  twin  fragile  shells, 
Were  white  as  Spring  skies  faintly  veined  with  blue. 

Years  had  she  flown  upon  the  moorland's  edge, 
Graven  upon  some  sleeping  ploughland  scene; 
And  I  with  parted  lips  would  stand  and  gaze, 
While  clouds  breathed  huge  still  outlines  in  the  sky: 

And  she  was  not  on  moor  or  field  or  hill; 

Perhaps  a  plough  was  dark  against  the  air; 

And  night  would  come,  and  the  pale  blossoming  moon 

Shining  upon  that  carven,  furrowed  sea. 

Yet  once  she  stood,  thin,  pale,  a  rain-clear  dream, 
With  skyey  white  arms  at  my  Winter  door; 
But  when  I  rose  the  air  was  desolate. 
With  thin  tree-fingers  frozen  in  the  sky. 

98 


Peace 

In  low  chalk  hills  the  great  King's  body  lay, 
And  bright  streams  fell,  tinkling  like  polished  tin, 
As  though  they  carried  off  his  armoury 
And  spread  it  glinting  through  his  wide  domain. 

Old  bearded  soldiers  sat  and  gazed  dim-eyed 
At  the  strange  brightness  flowing  under  trees. 
And  saw  his  sword  flashing  in  ancient  battles, 
And  drank,  and  swore,  and  trembled  helplessly. 

And  bright-haired  maidens  dipped  their  cold  white 

arms. 
And  drew  them  glittering,  colder,  whiter  still; 
The  sky  sparkled  like  the  dead  King's  blue  eye 
Upon  the  sentries  that  were  dead  as  trees. 

His  shining  shield  lay  in  an  old  grey  town. 
And  white  swans  sailed  so  still  and  dreamfully; 
They  seemed  the  thoughts  of  those  white,  peaceful  hills 
Mirrored  that  day  within  his  glazing  eyes. 

99 


And  in  the  square  the  pale  cool  butter  sold, 
Cropped  from  the  daisies  sprinkled  on  the  downs, 
And  old  wives  cried  their  wares,  like  queer  day  owls, 
Piercing  the  old  men's  sad  and  foolish  dreams. 

And  Time  flowed  on  till  all  the  realm  forgot 
The  great  King  lying  in  the  low  chalk  hills; 
Only  the  busy  water  dripping  through 
His  hard  white  bones  knew  of  him  lying  there. 


lOO 


Harp,  Flute  and  Viol 

The  Harp  was  silent  in  the  chamber 

Where  there  danced  the  wavering  shadow, 

Shadow  of  the  flute-player, 

Fitful  as  the  fall  of  water 

Dreaming — 

Then  the  shadow  of  the  viol 

Stole  upon  the  people's  faces, 

Played  with  fainter,  fainter  shadows 

Of  the  day  beyond,  the  day  of  sky  and  street, 

Of  illimitable  airy  shining, 

Walls  and  Pinnacles  and  Clouds 

Dreaming  on  the  pavement. 


«  «  % 


No  wind  but  only  light  reflected 
On  the  ivory  walls  and  ceiling. 
And  the  globes  of  porphyry 
Silently  and  softly  shining, 
And  the  shadow-fountain  flute, 


lOI 


Rippling,  murmuring  and  lolling 
There  amid  white,  dreamy  faces — 

Gazing  on  the  scenery 

Of  the  viol, 

In  a  land  enchanted,  weary, 

In  a  land  of  beauty  disillusioned  * 

The  Harp  began. 

Its  music  was  as  is  the  song  of  jasmine 

Slender  and  faint  among  the  dark  of  trees, 

Winding  a  stair 

From  the  dark  earth  towards  the  cold  white  stars. 

And  whiter  than  the  stars  the  arms  of  her 

That  plucked  the  strings  and  gazed  into  her  soul, 

Where  all  the  trees  of  the  round  earth  were  clustered 

Whose  Foliage, 

Heavy  and  calm  leaf-hammered  thunder,  filled 

That  silver  mirror  lying  in  the  world! 


102 


Gaze  on  into  your  soul,  O  Harp-player, 

Those  trees  that  weep, 

Those  flowers  that  twining  hang 

Dream-faces  vapour-crumbling  in  blind  woods 

Are  mirrored  there,  and  in  that  land  we  gaze! 

O  bright  thy  soul  thou  Moon  of  quicksilver! 
Lovely  the  falling  shadow  of  the  flute, 
Amid  the  viol's  quiet  scenery! 


103 


Solitude 

When  the  sun  is  sunk  and  the  woods  wave 

Their  dark  boughs  to  the  sky, 
And  the  sea  leaps  sullen  and  quiet, 

And  the  birds  sit  silently, 
Jewel-eyed  and  carved  on  the  dream-like  boughs, 

My  heart  beats  restlessly. 

O  in  the  quiet  of  the  dove-grey  sky 

Some  holy  land  there  may  be, 
Where  a  man  may  ride  in  solitude, 

Yet  not  unhappily — 
But  to  ride  through  this  shadow-crowded  world, 

God!  it  is  lonely! 

The  smging,  the  laughter,  men's  clear  eyes, 

Hollow  as  elfin  bells. 
Slim  girls,  falling  rain,  friends  drinking 

But  air-linked  syllables — 

They  are  more  wandering  than  any  voice 

Of  cuckoo  in  hill-heaped  dells. 
104 


And  even  this  dove-grey  sea  and  sky 

Is  so  quiet  a  mystery, 
That  I  feel  it  may  suddenly  fade  away 

With  its  carved  mountain  imagery; 
And  I  close  my  eyes  and  it  disappears, 

And  chill  it  is  and  airy! 

And  the  shadows  flock  to  my  ears  and  touch 

In  soft  and  populous  cries. 
My  heart  is  beleaguered  in  the  dark; 

A  crowd  pushes  close  and  sighs — 
Very  still,  wide-awake  and  watchful, 

The  lonely  sentinel  dies. 


los 


Mirage 


Whose  was  the  melody 

In  the  still  wood? 
From  a  small  bell  it  rang 

Close  where  I  stood, 
Windlessly  trembling 

Its  bright  blue  hood. 

Blue  in  the  green  of  leaves, 

Blue  in  the  grass 
The  dark  sea  flashes 

In  memory's  glass, 
In  the  still  wood  its  foam 

White  as  I  pass. 

Through  the  still  trees  it  rolled 

Once  long  ago, 
Great  sea-bells  are  tolling 

Hidden  below. 
Ringing  clear  bells  in  summer, 

Muffled  bells  in  snow. 


1 06 


On  the  Roof  of  the  World 

On  Chagola  the  air  was  full  of  butterflies, 
They  fluttered  down  the  valleys  of  bright  blue; 
White  they  were,  snow-tinted,  soft  as  the  soft  sea- foam 
That  far  inland  breaks  in  mysterious  bloom: 

Invisibly,  as  Spring  lapping  dark  hills, 

It  breaks  into  a  billow  pale  as  snow; 

From  Chagola  there  rolls  a  shadowy  tide 

Of  harebells,  drops  of  brightly  quivering  blue. 

The  sky  it  had  not  rained  its  azure  down 

But  hoarded  still  its  deep  soft  purple  air; 

A  glacier  shone,  a  cold,  a  cold  white  bride 

From  some  dark  home  of  earth  there  raptly  flown : 

O  Chagola,  Chagola,  come!  descend! 
Into  the  lowlands,  the  dark  and  windy  plains 
Where  my  house  is,  my  fireside  and  my  home, 
My  harbour  and  the  net  about  my  soul! 

107 


On  Persian  Hills 

On  Persian  hills  the  Moon  lights  shadowed  roses 
Still  as  stone  walls;  their  pale  dream-swept  faces 
Hang  in  soft  clusters  weary  and  dusty  grey. 

A  lattice  lies  wide  open  on  those  hills; 

Who  looks  upon  that  carven  soundless  scene — 

The  Tree,  the  Peacock  and  the  shining  Moon? 

It  is  jet  iark  that  small  high  window  square; 
The  shadowed  roses  dream,  the  Moon  is  still; 
Without  a  sound  the  Peacock  now  has  flown. 


1 08 


Petunia 

When  I  have  a  daughter  I  shall  name  her  Petunia ; 

Petunia,  Petunia  I  shall  call  her; 
In  the  rooms  of  my  house  she  shall  dance,  her  small  face 

So  bright  that  no  sorrow'll  befall  her. 

From  this  dark  pot  of  earth,  from  this  sun-clouded  hol- 
low 
Like  a  rainbow  she'll  spring  and  a  blue  sky  shall  follow. 

Green  trees  shall  blow  in  and  gay  fountains  of  water 

Ripple  the  voice  of  earth's  last  fairest  daughter. 

And  I'll  teach  her  the  songs  of  Apollo. 

The  songs  of  Apollo  that  white-armed  maidens 

Sing  in  the  soft  dusks  of  summer, 
In  the  gardens  of  Zante  the  sea-girt,  the  yellow, 

Where  the  black  and  gold  bees  hum  and  clummer; 

Where  the  oranges  glowing  with  sun-stolen  fire 

Lie  in  heaps  for  the  galleys  of  Phocos  and  Tyre; 

Where,  orbed  in  clear  water,  languidly  lying 

In  green,  shallow  pools  the  mermaids,  faint  crying, 

To  the  Sun  in  the  gold  West  quire. 

109 


In  the  green  of  their  eyes,  in  the  green  of  their  tresses 

The  forests  of  ocean  are  blowing, 
They  glint  with  strange  gleams  of  cold  stone  and  of 

metal 

Through  the  veins  of  the  blind  earth  flowing; 

Round  those  wavering,  gold,  orange-pyramids  swim- 
ming.^ 

The  beading  clear  water  their  ivory  breasts  brimming, 

They  sing,  and  faint-floating  the  songs  they  sing 

Through  fields  and  cities  and  men's  hearts  ring, 

The  glory  of  martial  life  dimming. 

From  all  small-mouthed  shells  on  the  shining  wet  sands 

A  ghadowy  roar  is  fleeting, 
The  roar,  of  great  oceans  chained  fast  to  the  Moon 

From  the  shores  of  the  dark  world  retreating: 

And  the  maids  who  to  bright  Aphrodite  cry 

Hear  naught  but  the  ebb-tide  faintly  sigh 

Far-off  in  the  dusk,  see  dark  tresses  drifting 

And  the  sudden-flashed  gleam  of  white  arms  lifting 

Dim  hands  in  the  sable  sky. 
no 


Warm  earth-maids  in  groups  with  arms  white  as  the 

stars 

On  the  edge  of  the  solid  world  crying, 
Their  faint  shadows  trembling  in  cold,  salt  pools 

Where  the  Moon  at  the  bottom  is  lying, 
Cry  out  to  the  weeds  on  the  bright  sea  rocking — 
The  dark-bearded  gods  in  their  moon-ships  rocking — 
On  the  beach  their  white  bodies  in  moon-vapour  limned 
Pale  shadows  on  cliffs  and  on  water  dimmed. 

To  the  bloom  of  the  sea-foam  flocking. 

Aphrodite!  Aphrodite!  thou  shalt  touch  and  awake  her, 

She  shall  gaze  on  her  body  in  wonder. 
She  shall  bathe  in  thy  foam,  in  her  veins  the  great  tide 

Of  the  world  beat  its  shadowy  thunder. 
All  youth  that,  of  old,  lifted  hands  to  the  sky 
By  thine  altars  shall  awaken,  shall  rise  and  cry 
In  her  heart  the  song  by  all  lovers  begun — 
As  the  ghosts  of  all  flowers  rise  each  year  to  the  sun 

From  where  their  cold  shapes  lie. 

Ill 


And  wrinkled  and  worn  I  shall  gaze  on  her  face 

And  w^orship  the  God  there  sleeping, 
The  ancient  glory  that  flows  up  at  dawn 

Out  of  earth's  darkness  leaping, 
I  shall  remember  the  beauty  of  water, 
Of  stillness,  of  lilies;  in  the  face  of  my  daughter 
Youth's  vanished  loveliness  I  shall  find; 
The  frosts  of  Winter  thy  hand  shall  unbind, 

Petunia,  Petunia,  my  daughter! 

The  dark  walls  will  crumble,  the  hills  glow  relighted. 

My  spirit,  that  slumbering  lover 
Shall  stare  at  the  sky  and  once  more  and  forever 

The  stars  shall  their  beauty  uncover. 
The  trees  that  droop  crowding  to  see  their  dark  limbs 
When  the  dusk  of  that  evening  each  clear  image  dims 
In  the  lake  of  my  soul  shall  quiver  and  gleam. 
And  depart — thou,  too.  Petunia — a  Dream 

As  the  earth  fades  out  to  its  rims. 


112 


The  Forest  Bird 

The  loveliest  things  of  earth  are  not 

Her  lilies,  waterfalls  and  trees, 
Or  clouds  that  float  like  still  white  stone 

Carved  upon  azure  seas, 
Or  snow-bright  orchids,  scarlet-lipped, 

In  the  darkness  of  damp  woods, 

In  hush  of  shadowy  leaves. 
Or  the  pale  foam  that  lights  the  coast 

Of  earth  on  moonless  eves. 

The  Moon  is  lovely  and  the  sea's 

Bright  shadow  on  the  sand, 
The  phantom  vessel  as  it  flies 

Out  from  a  phantom  land, 
And  hung  above  the  darkling  earth 

Moored  in  a  crystal  sky, 

A  fleet  of  phantom  lights; 
These  are  but  beauty's  fading  flags. 

Her  perishable  delights. 

"3 


But  in  transparency  of  thought 

Out  of  the  branched,  dark-foliaged  word 
Shimmers  a  strange,  soft-flitting  light 

Shy  as  a  forest  bird. 
It  is  most  lovely,  and  it  sings 

Strange  songs  to  sense  unknown, 

Dim  songs  of  earthly  doom, 
Of  an  immortal  happiness 

In  the  soul's  deepening  gloom. 


114 


Maidens 

There  is  a  hunger  in  their  small  white  limbs, 
It  is  the  beauty  of  the  world  they  seek; 
They  shall  have  children  gazing  on  great  stars 
That  melt  within  their  bodies.    They  shall  speak 
Of  rivers,  woods  and  oceans  of  the  world 
Babbling  soft  words  of  love  on  that  man's  lips 
Who  from  their  nakedness  all  safety  strips. 

Naked,  defenceless  in  a  wild  ravening  world, 
Clamouring  to  rape  their  beauty  ere  they  die, 
They  clasp  frail  hands,  fashioned  so  delicately 
That  men  go  mad  to  see  bared  beauty  lie 
On  the  dark  cloths  of  earth  like  trees  and  streams 
That  are  a  dark,  bright  budding  ecstasy, 
Souls  in  the  calm  deep  air  upleaping  free. 

And  I  have  fled  from  them  by  night  and  day, 
From  dark  trees  bending  high  against  the  Moon, 
From  streams  that  shone  like  spirits  seeking  flesh 
To  clothe  their  bright  desires.    At  summer's  noon 

115 


Bewitched  by  spirit-babblings  I  have  stolen 
To  watch  one  leap  among  the  ferns  and  grass 
A  naked  soul,  shining  and  clear  as  glass. 

And  these  white  nymphs  of  human  progeny 
Ache  for  the  darkness  soft  against  their  flesh; 
Their  pale  limbs  in  their  secret  chambers  gleam 
And  make  with  stars  and  streams  a  glimmering  mesh 
Of  bright  enchantment.    Slowly  sinks  the  world 
Beneath  the  spell  of  beauty  naked  lies 
Earth's  tortured  spirit  spread  against  the  skies. 

All  grief  and  joy  and  fear  of  bright-edged  swords 
And  fountains  of  red  blood  among  quiet  stars 
Leap  in  their  flesh,  as  in  snow  countries  fires 
Glimmer  among  pale  hills;  the  trees'  dark  bars 
Stark  black  with  death  fret  the  ethereal  flame 
Dug  from  the  bowels  of  earth.    The  dusty  lanes 
Ache  for  the  kiss  of  gentle-greeting  rains. 


ii6 


Soft  as  rain  falling  should  their  lovers  come 
And  touch  their  hands  and  gaze  into  their  eyes 
That  will  not  see  the  Moon  stand  round  and  still, 
Nor  the  white  Owl  motionless  as  it  iiies; 
For  this  is  love,  a  hollow  shining  dream 
Of  crystal  trees,  and  faces  cold  and  small 
That  do  not  sigh,  or  kiss,  or  speak  at  all. 


117 


Clerks  on  Holiday 

The  long  black  trains  are  stealing  from  the  city  one 

by  one; 

Packed  tight  in  corridors  they  stand,  their  holidays 

begun; 

Tall,  white-faced  creatures  blinking  in  the  dead  un- 
natural light, 

Phantoms  on  to  their  eyeballs  leaping  out  of  the  flying 

night — 

Trees,  lamps,  stars,  gusts  of  rain,  all  jumping  in  the 

brain. 

They  rattle  through  the  evening  air,  hats,  sticks  and 

luggage,  all 

Unreal  as  clowns  upon  their  way  to  some  small  country 

hall; 

Their  dumb,  high,  mournful  faces  dead  as  flowers  with 

moon- white  eyes, 

When  the  soft  humanising  sun  has  sunk  in  chilly  skies, 

And  vaguely  a  thin  wind  frets  the  trees'  dark  silhou- 
ettes. 

ii8 


By  midnight  they  are  driving  down  a  narrow  country 

road, 
The  thick  trees  watch  on  either  side  the  horse  and  his 

dark  load; 
The  trees  come  close  about  the  horse,  they  seem  to  talk 

together, 
The  moon  is  floating  in  the  sky,  light  as  a  white  owl's 

feather; 
Quiet  jut  the  village  roofs  amid  the  clanging  hoofs. 

They  enter  the  low  farmhouse  like  men  moving  in  a 

dream, 
Who  see  great  stars  beyond  a  room,  and  in  the  candle- 
gleam. 
They  stand  beside  the  window,  and  their  blood's  spring- 
reddened  tides 
Look  up  in  that  black  world  to  where,  soundless,  a  frail 

moon  rides 
In  a  thin  vapour  sea  of  hill  and  rock  and  tree. 


119 


They  know  not  why  they  gaze  upon  the  moon  with 

troubled  blood, 
They  tremble,  for  their  brains  are  bright  with  its  trans- 
parent flood; 
Slowly  they  walk  in  dark-wreathed  woods,  like  men 

fast  bound  with  spells; 
To  where  the  faint  immortal  cry  of  travelling  water 

dwells. 
Whose  cuckoo  voice  outsings  the  noise  of  mortal  things. 

The  voice  of  water  falling  down  from  leaf  and  fern  and 

stone. 
The  voice  of  hidden  water  on  a  pilgrimage  unknown. 
The  tiny  voice  that  calls  shut  up  in  miles  of  solid  rock, 
As  if  within  this  world's  stone  walls  some  other  world 

should  knock. 
And  press  unhurrying  by  with  a  strange  unhuman  cry. 

All  day  they  stare  among  the  trees  that  stand  beside  the 

pools, 
Hour-long  only  a  leaf  will  fall,  and  on  mossed  boulder 

stools 

1 20 


They  sit  and  feel  the  drip  of  time  so  infinitely  slow, 
There  is  no  motion  in  their  minds,  nowhere  for  time  to 

flow; 
And  from-'that  inner  gaze  fade  years  and  months  and 

days. 

The  leaves  are  rustling  overhead  as  they  sit  bowed  and 

still, 
A  crooked  line  of  restless  ants  climbs  up  a  little  hill, 
A  thrush  with  head  cocked  on  one  side  is  showing  one 

bright  eye. 
And  sunlight  mottling  all  the  ground  in  silence  flickers 

by- 
Deep-sunken  in  a  dream  trunks  of  men  and  forest  seem. 

The  sunlight  plays  upon  their  hair  and  flits  from  place 

to  place; 
The  sunlight  stirs  within  their  bones  and  gilds  each 

pallid  face 


121 


Bending  to  falling  water  and  the  scent  of  the  coming 

rose; 
And  blooming  softly  in  the  wood  the  spring  wing- 
footed  goes; 
Like  flowers  strangely  bright  their  faces  are  alight. 

And  thrush  and  robin,  birch  and  oak,  the  hot  sun's 

dancing  rays 
Work  their  strong  magic  in  the  brain,  dumb-still  they 

sit  and  gaze; 
And  beauty  blinds  them  as  they  hear  spring  winds  sea- 
hollowing  blow; 
Into  a  far  and  passionate  land  with  wild  starved  looks 

they  go; 
Return/  no  land  can  give  the  life  you  fain  would  live. 

Return^  return  unto  your  desks,  and  mount  your  office 

stools! 
None  shall  remain  within  this  quiet  that  broods  'round 

forest  pools; 

122 


The  sun  ivill  shine  on  ivhen  youWe  gone,  still  will  the 

waters  fall. 
And  other  faces  in  the  wood  shall  answer  its  faint  call, 
Shall  wander  through   hot  noons  followed  by  slow- 
paced  moons. 

And  sitting  deep  within  the  sun  I  watched  them  die 

away, 
I  watched  their  bodies  fade  like  clouds  upon  a  sum- 
mer's day, 
I  watched  the  green  boughs  waving  as  in  their  graves 

they  lie, 
Their  small  white  faces  crumbling  as  they  stare  into  the 

sky: 
And  O!  the  sky  was  bright  with  an  ecstasy  of  light! 


123 


The  Princess 

The  stone-grey  roses  by  the'  desert's  rim 
Are  soft-edged  shadows  on  the  moonlit*  sand, 
Grey  are  the  broken  walls  of  Khangavar 
That  haunt  of  nightingales,  whose  voices  are 
Fountains  that  bubble  in  the  dream-soft  Moon. 

Shall  the  Gazelles  with  moonbeam  pale  bright  feet 
Entering  the  vanished  gardens  sniff  the  air — 
Some  scent  may  linger  of  that  ancient  time, 
Musician's  song,  or  poet's  passionate  rhyme, 
The  Princess  dead,  still  wandering  love-sick  there. 

A  Princess  pale  and  cold  as  mountain  snow, 
In  cool,  dark  chambers  sheltered  from  the  sun, 
With  long  dark  lashes  and  small  delicate  hands: 
To  kiss  her  mouth  men  sighed  in  many  lands 
Until  in  shifting  sand  they  buried  her. 
124 


And  the  Gazelles  shall  flit  by  in  the  Moon 
And  never  shake  the  frail  Tree's  lightest  leaves, 
And  moonlight  roses  perfume  the  pale  Dawn 
Until  the  scarlet  life  from  her  lips  drawn 
Gathers  its  shattered  beauty  in  the  sky. 


125 


Death 

When  I  am  dead,  a  few  poor  souls  shall  grieve 
As  I  grieved  for  my  brother  long  ago. 

Scarce  did  my  eyes  grow  dim, 

I  had  forgotten  him; 
I  was  far-off  hearing  the  spring  winds  blow. 

And  many  summers  burned 
When  though  still  reeling  with  my  eyes  aflame, 

I  heard  that  faded  name 
Whispered  one  Spring  amid  the  hurrying  world 

From  which,  years  gone,  he  turned. 

I  looked  up  at  my  window  and  I  saw 

The  trees,  thin  spectres  sucked  forth  by  the  moon. 

The  air  was  very  still 

Above  a  distant  hill; 
It  was  the  hour  of  night's  full  silver  noon. 
"O  art  thou  there,  my  brother?"  my  soul  cried; 
And  all  the  pale  stars  down  bright  rivers  wept, 

As  my  heart  sadly  crept 

About  the  empty  hills,  bathed  in  that  light 

That  lapped  him  when  he  died. 
126 


Ah,  it  was  cold,  so  cold,  do  I  not  know 

How  dead  my  heart  on  that  remembered  day? 

Clear  in  a  far-away  place 

I  see  his  delicate  face 
Just  as  he  called  me  from  my  solitary  play, 

Giving  into  my  hand  a  tiny  tree — 
We  planted  it  in  the  dark  blossomless  ground 

Gravely  without  a  sound ; 
Then  back  I  went,  and  left  him  standing  by 

His  birthday  gift  to  me. 

In  that  far  land  perchance  it  quietly  grows 
Drinking  the  rain,  making  a  pleasant  shade; 

Birds  in  its  branches  fly 

Out  of  the  fathomless  sky 
Where  worlds  of  circling  light  arise  and  fade. 
Blindly  it  quivers  in  the  bright  flood  of  day, 

Or  drowned  in  multitudinous  shouts  of  rain 

Glooms  o'er  the  dark-yeiled  plain — 
Buried  below,  the  ghost  that's  in  his  bones 

Dreams  in  the  sodden  clay. 

127 


And  while  he  faded,  drunk  with  beauty's  eyes, 

I  kissed  bright  girls,  and  laughed  deep  in  dumb  trees 

That  stared  fixt  in  the  air 

Like  madmen  in  despair, 
Gaped  up  from  earth  with  the  escaping  breeze, 

I  saw  earth's  exaltation  slowly  creep 

Out  of  their  myriad  sky-embracing  veins. 

I  laughed  along  the  lanes. 
Meeting  Death  riding  in  from  the  hollow  seas 

Through  black-wreathed  woods  asleep. 

I  laughed,  I  swaggered  on  the  cold,  hard  ground — 
Through  the  grey  air  trembled  a  falling  wave — 

"Thou'rt  pale,  O  Death!"  I  cried, 

Mocking  him  in  my  pride; 
And,  passing,  I  dreamed  not  of  that  lonely  grave, 
But  of  leaf  maidens  whose  pale  moon-like  hands 

Above  the  tree-foam  waved  in  the  icy  air, 

Sweeping  with  shining  hair 

Through  the  green-tinted  sky,  one  moment  fled 

Out  of  immortal  lands. 
128 


One  windless  Autumn  the  Moon  came  out 
In  a  white  sea  of  cloud,  a  field  of  snow; 

In  darkness  shaped  of  trees 

I  sank  upon  my  knees, 
And  watched  her  shining  from  the  small  wood  below — 
Faintly  Death  flickered  in  an  owl's  far  cry — 

We  floated,  soundless,  in  the  great  gulf  of  space. 

Her  light  upon  my  face — 
Immortal,  shining,  in  that  dark  wood  I  knelt, 

And  knew  I  could  not  die. 

And  knew  I  could  not  die — O  Death,  didst  thou 
Heed  my  vainglory,  standing  pale  by  thy  dead? 

There  is  a  spirit  who  grieves 

Amid  earth's  dying  leaves; 
Was't  thou  that  wept  beside  my  brother's  bed? 
For  I  did  never  mourn  nor  heed  at  all 
Him  passing  on  his  temporal  elmwood  bier. 

I  never  shed  a  tear: 

The  drooping  sky  spread  grey-winged  through  my  soul 

While  stones  and  earth  did  fall. 

129 


That  sound  rings  down  the  years — I  hear  it  yet. 
All  earthly  life's  a  winding  funeral; 

And  though  I  never  wept, 

But  into  the  dark  coach  stept, 
Dreaming  by  night  to  answer  the  blood's  sweet  call. 
She  who  stood  there  high-breasted  with  small  wise  lips, 
And  gave  me  wine  to  drink  and  bread  to  eat, 

Has  not  more  steadfast  feet. 
But  fades  from  my  arms  as  fade  from  mariners'  eyes 

The  sea's  most  beauteous  ships. 

The  trees  and  hills  of  earth  were  once  as  close 
As  my  own  brother:  they  are  becoming  dreams 

And  shadows  in  my  eyes ; 

More  dimly  lies 
Guaya  deep  in  my  soul,  the  coast  line  gleams 
Faintly  along  the  darkling  crystalline  seas. 
Glimmering  and  lovely  still,  'twill  one  day  go; 

The  surging  dark  will  flow 

Over  my  hopes  and  joys,  and  blot  out  all 

The  hills  and  skies  and  trees. 
130 


I  shall  look  up  one  night,  and  see  the  Moon 
For  the  last  time  shining  above  the  hills. 

And  thou,  silent,  wilt  ride 

Over  the  dark  hillside — 
'Twill  be  perchance  the  time  of  daffodils — 
'^Hoiv  come  those  bright  immortals  in  the  woods? 
Their  joy  being  young,  didst  thou  not  drag  them  all 

Into  dark  graves  ere  Fall?" 
Life's  last  flash  leaping  through  me  as  I  go 

To  thy  deep  solitudes? 

There  is  a  figure  with  a  down-turned  torch 
Carved  on  a  pillar  in  an  olden  time. 

A  calm  and  lovely  boy 

Who  comes  not  to  destroy, 

But  to  lead  age  back  to  its  golden  prime. 

Thus  did  an  antique  sculptor  draw  thee,  Death, 

With  smooth  and  beauteous  brow,  and  faint  sweet 

smile, 
Not  haggard,  gaunt  and  vile, 

And  thou  perhaps  art  thus,  to  whom  men  may 
Unvexed,  give  up  their  breath. 

131 


But  in  my  soul  thou  sittest  like  a  dream 

Among  earth's  mountains  by  her  dim-coloured  seas. 

A  wild  unearthly  Shape 

In  thy  dark  glimmering  cape, 
Piping  a  tune  of  wavering  melodies. 
Thou  sittest,  ay,  thou  sittest  at  the  feast 
Of  my  brief  life,  among  earth's  bright-wreathed  flowers. 

Staining  the  dancing  hours 
With  sombre  gleams,  until,  abrupt,  thou  risest, 

And  all,  at  once,  is  ceased. 


132 


Love — A  Dream 

In  a  deep  mountain  lake  there  sailed  a  swan, 

Far,  far  away  from  any  human  soul ; 

And  daily  swam  with  her  a  speckled  trout, 

Who  only  left  her  when  deep  thunder  rolled — 

Sinking  far  down  where  that  swan  could  not  dive, 

So  that  she  tasted  bitterest  pangs  of  love 

And  drooped  upon  the  water  like  to  die. 

And  when  that  trout  came  near  with  the  blue  sky 

She  brightened  over  the  water  like  a  sail 

Set  for  the  harbour  after  a  winter  gale. 

No  solitary  ship  sailing  a  land-locked  sea 

With  her  own  shadow,  and  no  lonely  cloud 

In  water  moored,  abandoned  by  the  wind, 

To  substance  and  to  spirit  cloven,  seemed 

So  deeply  one  as  that  strange  pair  I  dreamed, 

Among  the  mountains  woven  in  my  mind.  .  .  . 

Morning  and  evening  her  song  filled  the  hills. 
The  shepherds  in  the  lowlands  heard  her  cry — 

^33 


Sitting  like  stones  amid  their  scattered  sheep — 

And  stood  and  gazed  into  the  distant  air. 

The  mountains  sunk  under  grey  woods  of  sleep, 

In  spring  would  wake,  and  shake  a  million  leaves, 

Flashing  gold  signals  to  the  speechless  sky, 

Stirring  uneasily  in  their  mould-deep  beds 

Until  the  fickle  fires  crept  away 

And  Autumn  found  them  cloudier  than  before, 

Breathed  on  the  shining  lake  a  phantom  shore.  .  .  * 

And  years  went  by,  and  never  dimmed  their  love; 

Her  plumage  shone  as  bright  as  winter  snow. 

And  her  bright  image  when  the  high  stars  gleamed 

Still  followed  that  frail  shape  that  moved  below, 

Which  could  not  cry,  nor  utter  words  of  love. 

But  silent  at  her  feet  did  ever  move. 

There  came  no  herald  crying  "Dream  no  more!" 

But  the  Night  flew  with  large  and  glittering  eyes, 

Brushing  its  purple  wings  through  the  dark  pines, 

And  when  the  day  gleamed  on  the  mirrored  hills, 

No  shadow  flitted  through  the  water's  ghosts; 
134 


For  it  had  passed  to  some  close-shuttered  realm, 
Some  country  fainter  and  more  dim  than  theirs. 
But  on  the  lake  a  thing  of  fading  snow 
Glimmered  away  from  that  sky-covered  world 
Of  air-drawn  rock  and  hill  and  breathing  wood, 
Trembling,  it  stretched  its  snowy  wings  to  rise, 
Flashing  bright  shapes  upon  the  calm,  blue  air. 
Then  drooped,  and  dimly  sailed  down  those  bright 

skies, 
Sailed  slowly  on,  in  the  cold  voiceless  hills, 
Singing  aloud  until  the  lake  did  cry 
With  quivering  mouth  up  at  the  empty  sky, 
And  darkness  soft  as  dew  came  dropping  down.  .  .  . 

Into  deep  silence  climbed  the  Hunter's  Moon. 


^3S 


The  Pompadour  in  Art* 

WOULDST  thou  go  back  to  that  white  nakedness 

Among  the  dark  trees  glinting  in  the  sun, 

Their  feet  white  marble  where  the  cool  brooks  run, 

Their  frail,  light  fingers  flushed  with  happiness? 

A  white  dream  in  the  hot  day's  breathlessness 

Wouldst  thou  enfold  in  thy  hot,  lustful  arms? 

Or  wouldst  thou  have  no  traffic  with  these  charms, 

Dost  then  indeed  love  primitive  ugliness? 

"To  Nature"  is  thy  cry,  "abandon  all 

Voluptuous  ornament  and  toilet  tricks!" 

Back  to  the  healthy  days  before  the  Fall, 

When  mother  Eve  her  food-foul  fingers  licks, 

And  recks  not  of  her  heavy  shapelessness, 

Her  dirty  nails,  her  dark  skints  hairiness? 

Because  thou  knowest  well  that  Grecian  dream 
Of  white  Fauns  in  a  wood,  and  slender  girls. 
Frail,  laughing  lilies  shaking  their  bright  curls 
Among  the  trees,  is  an  unnatural  dream; 

*  Vide  an  article  in  "The  Times  Literary  Supplement"  of  gth  August,  1917. 

136 


The  soft  white  skin  which  has  so  bright  a  gleam, 

Those  slender  limbs  and  delicate  manicured  hands, 

Have  they  not  been  desired  in  ancient  lands — 

A  part  of  that  strange  lure,  that  mystical  beam 

Of  beauty,  which  on  many  a  drab  old  tower 

At  sunset  casts  a  fairy  artifice, 

Lending  rough  bricks  a  sudden  magic  power 

So  that  dead  clay  becomes  beauty's  device, 

For  coquetry  in  clothes  and  hair  and  hands 

Is  the  quick  spirit  loosening  matter's  bands! 

As  for  myself,  proudly  I  confess 

I  love  not  matter  lumped  and  unadorned, 

FivQ  feet  of  flesh  is  but  a  cow  unhorned 

If  the  quick  spirit  show  not  in  the  dress; 

Blushes  are  roses  in  a  wilderness, 

And  pencilled  eyebrows  are  the  soul's  delight; 

The  Moon  is  not  more,  lovely  in  the  night 

Than  are  white  shoulders  in  a  shadowy  dress : 

And  in  silk  stockings  frailly  gleam  white  limbs 

137 


Like  candles  drawing  painted  butterflies; 

And  dressed  hair  gives  the  soul  an  earthless  flower 

That  shines  into  our  eager,  seeking  eyes — 

For  now  she  speaks  and  moves  beyond  all  dreams 

A  Focus  where  some  wild  world  radiance  streams. 

The  flesh  has  no  expression  in  the  mind 
Unless  it  be  shot  through  with  subtle  thought. 
An  honest  wife  is  all  too  easily  bought, 
A  ten-stone  animal  that's  deaf  and  blind, 
Who  dresses  plainly,  plainly  cooks,  is  kind — 
And  knows  her  husband's  income  to  a  nought; 
Wears  calico,  flat  shoes,  is  heard  to  snort 
At  vice,  but  knows  not  virtue  or  mankind; 
A  cow,  a  bitch,  a  sense-dulled  lump  of  clay 
Were  virtuous  as  she,  for  art  as  ripe; 
And  in  her  sense's  flesh-dimmed,  feeble  ray 
Her  husband  is  a  thing  who  smokes  a  pipe — 
Such  is  the  wife,  das  Weib,  die  deutsche  Frau, 
Formed  to  stir  clay,  but  only  with  the  plough. 
138 


But  Beauty  is  more  delicate  than  the  wind, 

Trackless  and  as  intangible  as  light; 

It  cannot  be  pinned  down  for  common  sight; 

Like  violets  in  a  wood  it  haunts  us  blind, 

Though  scentless  trees  are  mirrored  in  our  mind. 

A  girl's  dress  is  a  lovely  wood,  a  night 

Of  flowing  clouds  and  shattered,  shaken  light; 

An  arabesque  of  dust  to  dust  resigned, 

With  cloud  and  wood  and  star,  and  her  bright  love; 

And  in  these  rags,  and  in  the  dust  of  worlds 

Beauty  departed  lies  as  lies  the  dove 

In  a  few  feathers  bleaching  in  the  sun — 

As  the  form  crumbles  so  the  spirit  wanes, 

And  we'll  not  find  it  more  for  all  our  pains. 


139 


A  Madonna  in  Westminster 

A  GIRL  before  him  knelt  in  silent  prayer, 
A  stylish  hat  poised  on  her  red-brown  hair 
Caught  up  behind  in  quite  the  latest  mode 
By  a  coquettish  comb,  so  that  it  showed 
The  warm  smooth  neck  in  shadow  softly  lit 
By  light  reflected  from  the  collar  round  it — 
Pure  dazzling  linen,  turned  Medici-wise 
Rigid  and  high  to  please  fantastic  eyes. 
There,  as  she  knelt  in  arching  dark  cloth  shoes 
And  silken  stockings,  the  dim  hanging  air 
Curtained  her  round,  incense  proceeded  from  her 
As  if  she  were  a  holy  shrine:  he  trembled; 
All  the  vast  arches  glimmered  shadow-wise; 
Vague,  insubstantial  shone  the  gleaming  stone; 
Life  streamed  in  from  the  encircling  universe 
And  gathered  in  great  waves  that  softly  swept 
Through  the  dim  aisles,  up  and  down  the  nave, 
Thundering  softly  like  a  myriad  horse 
A  myriad  horse  that  scour  a  mystic  plain 
14Q 


In  muffled  dreams  at  dawn.    His  soul  bent  down 
And  kissed  her  feet:  then  he  saw  her  rise, 
Sit  for  a  moment,  deftly  try  her  hair, 
Take  out  a  glass — content  that  she  was  fair 
Escaping  from  each  movement,  each  svelt  line 
Of  arm  and  fingers.    Ay,  the  world  sat  there, 
The  ancient  world,  the  modern,  very  wise, 
Sat  in  that  mighty  church,  and  subtly  drew 
Its  subtle  fingers  o'er  the  chords  of  life. 
Drew  melody  from  all  the  carven  stones 
That  played  like  harps  about  her, 
From  the  great  heavy  arches  languor  drew. 
And  glitter  from  the  jewels  of  her  that  stood 
Within  the  blue  and  gold  mosaicked  niche 
Above  the  altar,  drew  from  those  great  domes 
A  murmur  as  of  droves  of  doves  descending. 
Whirl  upon  whirl,  a  cloud  of  fluttering  feet 
Filling  invisibly  the  empty  chairs. 


141 


His  soul  rose  up,  and  very  swiftly  swept 
Through  the  dim  nave,  up  and  down  the  aisles 
Like  a  great  eagle  filled  with  harmony 
Of  earth  and  sky  and  lifting  in  its  rhythm 
The  little  streams,  the  hum  of  rustling  trees, 
The  tinkling  waterfalls,  the  march  of  clouds 
The  soundless  ripples  wrinkling  flat-faced  lakes 
Expressionlessly  set  in  shadowy  rims, 
The  blue  and  hollow  laughter  of  the  sky, 
The  swift  green  flash  of  the  rotating  earth 
And  the  mad  tumbling  waters  of  the  sea, 
Crystalline  green  and  shattered,  splintered  white, 
All,  all  caught  up  in  one  throb  of  life. 
And  he  beheld  her  soft,  firm  moulded  arm 
Closely  ensheathed  adjust  a  truant  curl 
From  the  warm  profile,  then  their  eyes  did  meet, 
And  her  blood  quickened  so  that  once  again 
She  took  her  mirror  and  with  conscious  poise 
Of  head  and  shoulders  told  him  that  she  knew 
How  fair  she  was,  and  how  his  blood  was  stirred 
Just  at  the  sight  of  her  disdainful  fingers. 
142 


Then  she  arose,  passed  to  the  centre  aisle, 
And  genuflected;  he  watched  her  walk  away, 
Proud  and  self-conscious  of  her  exceeding  beauty. 
He  followed  her  to  the  porch  and  saw  her  step 
Into  a  waiting  car;  her  dark  eyes  glowed 
To  feel  his  admiration,  though  she  showed 
No  sign  she  saw  him,  save  to  loose  her  fur 
Back  from  her  slender,  warm  and  delicate  throat. 

She  drove  away,  and  all  was  faded  then, 
The  swift  car  dwindled  and  at  once  was  gone; 
The  street  was  empty,  little  heaps  of  rubbish 
Sat  vanishing  by  the  side  of  the  empty  gutters — 
Dry,  incoherent,  dwindling  back  to  space 
In  unobservant  silence.    Was  it  a  Dream 
That  some  few  streets  away  the  roaring  traffic 
Of  living  millions  streamed  incessantly? 
No,  he  could  hear  its  hum,  remote  and  dim, 
Just  like  flies  buzzing  in  that  empty  street, 
Buzzing  against  the  doors  and  the  closed  windows. 
Not  one  door  opened,  no  one  ever  came 

143 


Out  of  those  buildings,  those  high  blocks  of  flats 
Of  yellow  bricks  and  dark  bricks  and  cement. 
He  was  alone,  watching  the  dry  dust  dwindle, 
Watching  the  crumbling  shell  of  life  departed, 
Life  that  had  gone  and  left  the  hollow  sunshine, 
The  dust-heaps  and  the  row  of  blistered  doors. 

Still  he  stood  there  and  all  was  quiet  about  him. 

Remote,  O  how  remote,  the  long  street  seemed! 

His  heart  stirred  in  him,  and  a  scrap  of  paper 

Whirled  in  a  corner,  turning  helplessly; 

He  felt  as  if  thrust  in  some  fourth  dimension, 

As  if  he'd  accidentally  uplifted 

A  back-cloth  corner  of  the  world's  set  stage, 

And  looking  behind  the  scenes  had  found  no  bustle, 

No  throng  and  tumult,  no  directing  hand, 

Only  a  little  scrap  of  whirling  paper. 

And  he  himself,  intense,  and  breathing  hard, 

Fixed,  listening  to  his  own  heart's  palpitation. 


144 


It  was  a  moment  only,  one  brief  moment, 
And  then  there  glided,  rumbling  heavily, 
A  Dream  from  the  other  world,  a  Pickford  van, 
A  coalescence  of  strange  creaks  and  noises 
That  drew  across  his  mind;  the  Driver  sat, 
A  limp  bent  figure  with  an  open  mouth, 
A  two-days'  beard,  and  grime-ringed  vacant  eyes. 
Suspended  o'er  a  ragged,  ambling  horse, 
Rocked  to  the  music  of  the  jingling  harness; 
While  the  wheels  turning  with  a  different  motion 
And  the  straps  flapping,  and  the  swaying  Driver 
All  gave  the  semblance  of  a  Dream,  that  faded — 
Round  the  next  corner — all  was  still  again. 


145 


A  Last  Love  Poem 

Many  poems  have  I  written  unto  thee,  good  and  bad, 
And  many  more  have  I  not  uttered, 
For  the  words  came  not.    Ay,  those  feeble  little  words 
That  leap  so  easily  from  the  lips  of  the  speaker 
And  fall  dead  upon  the  ground,  they  came  not: 
For  they  were  fearful  of  the  burden  of  my  thought, 
And  my  passion  shrivelled  them  up  as  leaves  in  a  hot 

fire. 
My  thoughts  were  like  lightning  playing  upon  the  hills, 
They  hovered  about  thy  beauty  as  lightning  upon  the 

sea; 
Pale,  cold  is  thy  beauty,  aloof  from  the  warm  arms  of 

the  earth, 
Sparkling  like  a  robe  of  jewels  laid  for  the  ghostly 

moon; 
No  one  shall  joy  of  thee,  only  the  black  headlands  be- 
hold thee. 
Staring  like  blind  men  in  the  night,  haunted  by  the 

lapping  waves 

146 


For  thy  movements  are  like  waves  and  all  waters, 
Mocking  and  stirring  the  senses  even  to  where  the  soul 

dwelleth, 
Withdrawn  to  forgotten  recesses,  forgotten  of  thee  and 

the  waters, 
Careless  of  all  thy  cold  beauty,  hearing  the  wind's  soft 

voices, 
And  the  warmth  of  the  old  earth  breathing. 

If  in  the  cold  dead  darkness  thine  eyes  should  open  and 

seek  me. 
If  in  the  dead  white  moonlight  thou  shouldst  stir  and 

awaken, 
If  in  all  thy  pale  beauty  thou  shouldst  stretch  warm 

arms  forth  to  meet  me, 
I  would  turn  once  again  and  love  thee,  forgetting  the 

wind's  soft  voices 
I  would  rise 'from  the  warm  earth's  bosom,  shake  the 

dust  from  my  feet  and  take  thee, 
Envelop  thee  as  in  a  garment  and  bury  my  face  in  thy 

hair, 
147 


And  kiss  the  blood  to  thy  cheeks,  and  to  thine  eyes  and 

ears, 
Till  it  danced  through  thy  body  like  music: 

I  would  grip  thy  pale  little,  hands,  hurting  them  ever 

so  slowly 
Until  thy  lips  parted  beseeching,  then  would  I  kiss 

them  silent. 
O  thou  soul  of  the  world,  words  have  I  not  for  music, 
But  a  wild  and  flaming  spirit  that  hunts  like  an  out- 
lawed robber 
Building  pillars  of  smoke  in  the  lonely  deserts  of  night, 
Seeking  a  vision  of  beauty,  a  haunting  far-off  vision 
That  came,  to  him  once  as  he  rode  with  the  kisses  of 

dawn  on  his  forehead. 
And  sudden  and  swift  without  warning  the  sea  stretched 

shining  before  him, 
Not  dead  but  awake  and  living,  caressing  the  sleeping 

earth 
With  a  thousand  tender  touches — the  earth  all  uncon- 
scious and  sleeping: 

Pale  was  the  sea  as  thou  art,  a  web  of  shadowed  opal, 
148 


Soft  and  mysterious,  quivering,  with  countless  meshes 

of  light, 
But  alive  with  a  soft  exulting,  a  warm  and  passionate 

greeting 
As  I  stepped  down  and  possessed  thee,  Aphrodite!  my 

long,  long  loved  one! 
And  felt  thy  soft,  timid  embraces  as  in  my  wild  pas- 
sion I  kissed  thee, 
And  kissed  thee  until  thou  wert  silent  and  breathed  in 

my  arms  like  a  child. 
And  the  world  stopped  still,  and  the  Morning, 
In  her  golden  chariot  waiting,  stood  at  the  Eastern 

Portal. 


149 


Le  Sacre  du  Printemps 

Spring  trembles  on  the  hills  and  though  the  earth 

Is  grey  and  dark  with  silence  and  dim  rains, 

Long  bands  of  red  and  yellow  ochre  lie 

Like  corybants  enswathed  in  vivid  sashes 

Under  the  soil  that's  fragrant  with  their  presence. 

The  Winter  window-stoled  grey  and  white, 

Leans  across  hill  and  valley  pensively 

Weeping  to  leave  those  quiet  sober  plains 

Where  gentle  melancholy  drapes  her  robes 

In  cloud  and  dripping  wood.    She  is  not  mute, 

But  all  her  soul  is  gentle;  reverie 

In  tracts  of  cool,  rain-washed,  reflected  light 

Is  more  delectable  to  her  than  songs 

Of  any  passion.    When,  dismayed,  she  hears 

That  note  of  longing  bubbling  to  the  sky 

Shiv'ring  she  turns,  retires  with  decent  train 

And  leaves  the  earth  all  breathless,  panting  hard. 

Quickened  with  such  mad  trembling  ecstasy 

Those  corybants  arise,  yellow  and  red, 

150 


And  shake  their  vivid  sashes  o'er  the  land; 

The  world  holds  breath  a  moment;  then  they  dance, 

Dance  madly,  whirling  millions  springing  up 

Tossing  slim  heads,  their  naked  beauty  bare 

Intoxicating  the  blue  laughing  sky 

To  foam  imagination — Cumuli, 

Cloud-white  creations  frothed  in  empty  space. 

So  insubstantial,  of  such  dream-like  weight 

That  if  they  moved  they'd  vanish.    Then  Desire 

That  sucks  a  wraith-like  beauty  visible 

From  nothingness,  and  out  of  ordure  vile 

Summons  bright  Forms  to  press  against  the  wind 

Their  all-too-fleeting  Symmetry, 

Wakes  in  the  heart  of  men  and  scatters  seeds 

Of  poignant  loveliness  so  sweet,  so  rare 

That  springing  up  in  some  far-distant  time 

The  world  will  dance  in  sharper  ecstasy, 

Flowers  will  be  taller,  cities  hang  like  blooms 

Upon  the  breast  of  earth,  and  men  and  women 

Like  Gods  in  dazzling  beauty,  arm  in  arm, 


151 


White  flesh  to  white  flesh,  bathe  in  sapphire  seas 
And  rapturously  hunt  the  spirit's  jewel, 
Green  gleam  of  mariners  that  beckons  far 
More  beautiful  than  purple-furrowed  oceans 
Or  emerald  isles — but  hidden  in  their  eyes 
So  that  they  never  find  its  dwelling-place 
Or  cry  Eureka!  resting  on  their  oars. 


52 


Fantasy 

Silence!    A  great  crowd  sits  and  waits, 
Tier  upon  tier  in  circles  strangely  mute; 
The  air  hangs  limp  and  almost  visible, 
Pregnant  with  power  unuttered : 

A  Stick  is  waving  silently  .  .  . 

Three  trembling  jewels  fell  shining  midst  our  thoughts 

Leaving  a  glitter  from  another  world : 

Then  three  more  fell,  and  then  the  throbbing  air 

Awoke  and  sang,  and  stretched  its  rope-like  throat 

And  beat  and  beat  against  that  domed  roof: 

Dark  wings  shot  out  and  struck  to  bear  it  up. 

The  place  was  full  of  multitudinous  striving; 

I  was  tossed  hither,  thither  in  uneasy  effort 

As  in  a  cloud  of  dreams;  but  suddenly 

Our  prison  burst,  and  to  the  lidless  sky 

We  raced  and  raced  until  the  soft  soft  blue 

153 


Tore  at  our  shoulders,  ripped  our  aching  flesh, 
Laid  bare  our  soul  to  burn,  catch  fire  and  blaze, 
Exultingly  suck  in  the  azure  air 
And  fill  the  spacy  nothingness  of  heaven 
With  the  distract,  disruptive  power  of  passion; 
Till  little  wisps  of  clouds  did  madly  pluck 
Themselves  in  fragments,  jangling  stars  did  dance, 
And  a  whole  firmament  of  glass  and  metal 
Cracked  up  and  shivered,  jarring  wayside  stones 
And  vitreous  spangles  hid  in  loam  and  clay; 
Till  gently  glittering,  trembling  up  and  down, 
We  shook  together,  filled  a  mobile  lake 
With  soft  and  shimmering  waters — Flash! 
We  smoothly  lie 

Unruffled  to  the  calm  and  breathless  sky 
Where  nothing  sails: 

No  Cloud,  no  Ship,  no  Bird 

Only  a  thought  comes  winging — keen  and  gay, 

A  thought  that  will  not  stay 

To  be  remembered  or  even  known 

154 


When  it  hath  passed  its  way. 

It  sings  itself  so  joyously  in  space 

Bubbling  like  spirit  water,  frail  and  thin, 

Which  eager  hands  may  seek  in  vain  to  trace, 

Close,  holding  nothing  in. 

Nothing,  just  nothing — O  something  escapes. 

Something  has  vanished,  shut  wings  up  like  a  lark, 

And  fallen  in  the  dust, 

And  left  a  gap 

Where  strings  are  faintly  stirred. 

Where  strings  are  stirring  faint  and  rhythmically 

Like  the  slow  beat  of  oars  that  wider  sweep 

And  wider  still,  and  though  no  ship  there  be 

Yet  we  set  sail — the  currents  eddy  round 

And  close  above  our  heads. 

Drowned!    Drowned! 
Engulfed  ia  consciousness  so  vast  and  free 
We  move  like  swaying  forms  within  the  sea, 
Or  we  are  like  the  sea  that  flows  through  all 
Anemones,  transparent  flowers,  tall 


^S5 


And  waving  daughters,  crowding  thick  tip-toe 
Upon  a  rock  to  see  the  Nautilus  go 
Into  the  dim  translucent  worlds  that  wane 
With  shadows,  to  light  up  again 
With  a  pale  glow  that  travels — O  so  far! 
We  follow,  follow,  follow,  hunt  the  gleam 
That  radiates  the  world,  that  bathes  our  arms, 
Slips  round  our  bodies,  glints  within  our  eyes, 
And  then  withdraws — Fades!  Fades!  Fades! 
And  without  movement  dies. 

I  can  still  hear  the  beating  of  the  oars, 

I  can  still  hear  the  stirring  of  the  strings, 

I  can  see  the  rhythmic  swaying  tide, 

And  the  pale  anemones, 

And  the  Nautilus, 

And  the  Green  Gleam, 

Who  wanders  there  where  your  tall  daughters  stare 

And  lifts  their  eyelids,  spreads  their  streaming  hair 

To  ripple  with  the  unwrinkled  waving  light 

156 


That  runs  like  green  blood  through  all  plants  and 

flowers, 
Or  glows  opaquely  in  some  fish's  side 
Like  a  dense  jewel  floating  by? — 
I  ask  but  no  one  answers;  all  is  still; 
For  they  are  no  man's  daughters,  no  one  knows 
How  they  wait  ever,  standing  tip-toe  there 
While  all  the  world  through  their  frail  bodies  flows, 
Ebbs  from  their  finger-tips — Swells — and  Sways, 
Hanging  upon  their  lips,  and  rocks  them  all 
In  rooted  motion — Sea-urchins,  sea-farers,  in  among 

the  sea-sunflowers, 
In  among  the  ox- rays,  the  trepang  and  the  colander: 
The  polyps  spread  their  fringe  of  arms,  the  drunken 

algce  reel  around 
Far  from  the  dipping  guillemot — O  they  fade  and  fade 
And  there  is  but  a  web  of  woven  streams 
Where  images  are  blurred;  dim  rain-drops  fall, 
Dim,  shuddering  drops  of  white  and  violet  light. 
I  hear  the  thunder  call; 

157 


It  swells,  it  comes, 

And  trampling  feet  come  with  it — O  beware! 
These  halls  of  quietness  are  not  long  to  hold 
Their  weeping  daughters,  pale,  inviolate; 
The  Wind's  tumultuous  feet  are  at  the  gate. 
They  come,  they  come,  to  break  your  tender  stems. 
To  wound  your  swaying  mouths  and  trample  down 
Your  bleeding  bodies,  tear  your  coral  veins 
And  stain  the  purple  bottom  of  the  sea 
With  shrieking  patterns.    What  ecstatic  pains 
Uplift  you  now  and  bring  that  vanished  gleam 
Flickering  like  June  lightning?    Louder  grow 
Those  multitudinous  feet!    O  blindly  gape. 
Strain  forth  your  bodies'  ichor,  lean  to  them 
Who  come  to  pluck  you  with  invisible  hands; 
So  shall  you  flower,  and  the  last  flying  gleam 
Shall  kiss  your  scattered  blossoms. 
The  whole  sea  moves,  its  waters  tumbling  down 
In  green  and  purple  columns  drown  my  sight; 
I  catch  a  glimpse  of  wan  and  fleeting  forms 

158 


Tossing  a  handful  of  dishevelled  jewels, 

Of  glittering  bubbles — then  thick  masses  dim, 

In  semicircles  ranged,  opaque  and  dark. 

Emerge,  and  with  a  muffled  tap  of  drum 

Move  arms,  show  teeth,  nod  heads  and  look  like  men. 


159 


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